During the press conference yesterday, Lesley spoke about some of the changes to West Virginia’s defensive scheming and also talked about the depth of his team.
Lesley’s first question was to give a general overview on his thoughts of the team. “It’s too early to tell you,” he began. “I really like this group, and they’re fun to coach. Probably the biggest thing we talk about, we don’t have to coach effort. If you can do that, then you got a shot. The rest of it, I think you know, it’ll fall into place.”
With four practices under their belt, Lesley was asked if there was anyone who stood out thus far. “I think our two older safeties, Aubrey (Burks) and Anthony Wilson have put some good days together. Trey Lathan, who probably had his best day today. (Josiah) Trotter, Ben Cutter, Reid Carrico. I know Neal (Brown) has talked about the linebacker room… this is the deepest, most experienced we’ve been. Sean Martin has had three or four good days in a row. I think our nose guard room is really competitive right now.”
Lesley was also asked about Reid Carrico and what he brings to the team. Carrico is a linebacker who transferred from Ohio State to enter his redshirt junior season in the old gold and blue. “Reid is deceptively fast,” Lesley replied, “I think the defense fits Reid with his skill set. He’s a true inside backer; strong, he’s powerful, he’s explosive. But he brings a mental component, understanding. He’s really quick to pick up… you get that with a transfer, most times that comes with experience, they’ve been in other systems so they have an idea of, not necessarily the terminology, but the volume of the terminology that you get during installs. So he picks up on it extremely quick… whether he ends up being a starter or high quality depth, which is what we haven’t had, Reed definitely gives us that.
Following up on Carrico, Lesley was asked if this was the deepest linebacker group he’s had since he came to Morgantown in 2019. “Yeah. Deepest top to bottom.”
Lesley continued to field questions about his strategies with how he manages and coaches players. You can watch the full press conference here:
