Heading into the 2024 season, West Virginia returns most of its core at the linebacker, with the only major player the Mountaineers have lost from last season being Lee Kpogba.
Now, you can argue that the depth at inside linebacker is deeper than what it was a season ago. West Virginia returns guys like Ben Cutter, Trey Lathan, Caden Biser, and Jairo Faverus, and they also get back Josiah Trotter from a season-ending injury last year and added Reid Carrico in the transfer portal from Ohio State.
Jeff Koonz has been impressed with the growth and development of Ben Cutter this spring.
“Ben is definitely one of those guys that I told you is quicker, he’s more explosive, he’s faster,” Koonz said. “Ben’s a guy that’s taken his coverage to another level this spring. He’s decreased missed tackles, which was a point of emphasis for him.”
In addition to Trotter, Trey Lathan is also returning from a season-ending injury suffered in the game against TCU at the end of September. Coach Koonz has been impressed with how the two have been coming off of injury.
“They’ve been phenomenal and have had no glitches no hiccups at all, so it’s been fun to watch,” Koonz said. “They were on schedule. They were actually both ahead of schedule, so I’m not surprised whatsoever.”
Many of the players have mentioned Trotter and how the son of former NFL linebacker Jeremiah Trotter has been up to this point. Coack Koonz mentioned the size he has and the experience that he has had dating back to high school.
“He’s a physically imposing guy. He’s a bigger bodied guy than we’ve had. He’s played a lot of football. You go back to his high school career, he played very early in his career, he’s got a ton of reps and he played for a program that went deep into the playoffs and played for state championships every year.”
As aforementioned, West Virginia acquired linebacker Reid Carrico in the transfer portal earlier this offseason. Coach Koonz has been impressed with how the former four-star recruit has been to the program.
“He’s done a phenomenal job of adjusting to our culture here at West Virginia. Reid wanted to be here. Reid definitely was a welcoming addition to the room, but he fit who we are as a culture, as a program.”
Jeff Koonz says that he could have as many as six guys who have played meaningful snaps in Power Four football. Koonz now hopes to be able to rotate guys in and out of the lineup this season.
“Absolutely, I want to do that. I want to keep fresh bodies. What this is going to enable us to do too is when teams want to get big on us, now we’re going to have the ability to do subpackages and to be bigger and take guys out of my room and put them at outside linebacker and vice versa.”
Koonz, who is also the special teams coordinator, also noted how the additional depth at linebacker helps out the depth on special teams.
“When you play linebacker, you play running back, you play tight end, you better be a special teams contributor as well if you want to play this game for a long time. With this much depth in the room, that’s also going to bleed over into special teams where guys where guys can play on two units maybe instead of one.”
West Virginia is in the midst of spring practices with the Spring Game set for Saturday, April 27 at Milan Puskar Stadium. The season opener is set for August 31 against Penn State at Milan Puskar Stadium.
