Personnel changes in the secondary that West Virginia head coach Neal Brown said would occur were one of the main stories leading up to their game against Kansas.
Jacolby Spells and TJ Crandall got their opportunity to start against the Jayhawks after the pass defense became a crucial concern. Monday, Brown gave his thoughts on how the changes turned out and how the players performed.
“We did better. I don’t think we’ve arrived by any means,” Brown said on pass coverage.
The Mountaineers held Kansas to under 200 yards passing after allowing consecutive weeks of 300+ yards in the air. While the player who got it, Tyrin Bradley, isn’t in the secondary, WVU also got its first interception of the year.
Regarding the personnel changes made in the secondary specifically, Brown wasn’t entirely pleased with Spells.
“I thought Jacolby (Spells), first significant playing time of the year, made two critical errors, but the ball didn’t find him a whole lot” Brown said.
However, Brown saw some positives out of Spells, but the errors may have outweighed them.
“I thought he did some good things fundamentally, but he made two critical errors that he can’t have,” Brown said.
According to Brown, Crandall, the other change in the starting secondary, got hurt and needs to make slight improvements and adjustments, but he did his job on multiple snaps.
“Crandall up until when he got hurt, he’s got to recognize some personnel things. You got to play it a little bit different when you got tight ends compared to when you have receivers,” Brown said. “But I thought he played some quality snaps.”
Brown believes Sunday’s performance was a step forward for his secondary overall.
“I thought from just from a schematic standpoint we did a better job in the secondary,” Brown said. “We executed our base
coverages: quarters, some cover three stuff with our pressures, we executed that at a much higher level.”
The Mountaineers are currently on a bye week but return to game action against Oklahoma State on the road on Oct. 5.
