Moving Day
August 10, 2007 10:27 PM | General
August 10, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Friday was moving day at Milan Puskar Stadium. West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez decided to give a couple of younger players a look at different positions. Backup center Eric Jobe took some reps at nose guard and true freshman defensive back Kendall Washington was sent over to the wide receivers with Coach Tony Dews.
“It’s no big deal,” Rodriguez said. “We’re trying to find two at every position that we feel comfortable with.”
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| Jobe |
Jobe, a 6-foot-4-inch, 300-pound redshirt freshman from La Plata, Md., was working behind starter Mike Dent at center.
“We’re a little thin on the D-line right now. He was probably the best candidate of those young linemen to do that,” Rodriguez said. “We’ll see how that goes for a little while.”
According to Rodriguez, Jobe showed him some things in one-on-one drills this afternoon.
“I watched a little bit of what we call the W drill which is a one-on-one drill we start off practice with and showed some good pop,” said the coach. “He wasn’t progressing as fast as we’d like at center but we’re not going to give up on him there. If he’s not going to be in the rotation defensively or be able to play a little bit then we’ll move him back. We won’t know that for another week or so.”
Washington, an athletic 6-foot-4-inch, 195-pound true freshman from Canton, Ohio, came to WVU as a possible safety candidate. Rodriguez said the move could be temporary or permanent.
“He was going to be redshirted on defense and he may be redshirted anyway. Today was kind of moving day,” Rodriguez said.
The switches were necessitated by nagging injuries at defensive line and at wide receiver. Wes Lyons (knee) and Alric Arnett (ankle) didn’t practice today with the receivers, and Johnny Dingle (hamstring), Scooter Berry (elbow) and true freshman Julian Miller were sidelined on the defensive line. Thor Merrow, out yesterday, was back on the field today, says Rodriguez.
“D-line is a concern because of the injuries more than anything else,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve got to have bodies to practice and play with. (Keilen) Dykes would be our best nose guard but he’s also our best tackle. We can’t put him in there and run 70-80 snaps at tackle and nose and expect him to last. We’ve got to get some depth there.”
The coach also announced that backup slot receiver Jeremy Bruce plans to transfer to Akron. Bruce appeared in 19 games the last two seasons, catching a total of eight passes for 98 yards. He also carried 10 times for 32 yards.
“He’s a good young man. He wants to play tailback and he’s going to have two years after he sits out a year,” Rodriguez said. “We’re going to release him and we wish him well. I hope it works out for him.”
Briefly:
The team will have two-a-day practices Tuesday and Thursday of next week.
“We might be in good shape for summer workouts but we’re not in West Virginia football shape. Not even close,” Rodriguez said. “Our strength staff I feel is as good as anybody’s in the country but when you go in there and there’s hitting involved and thinking involved … when you run in the summer there isn’t a whole lot of thinking – just thinking how miserable you are when you’re running.
“When you’ve got to think and run – and there’s some hitting involved – that’s two different dynamics that aren’t there in the summer,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez says that’s why it’s so important to have a tough camp for the players.
“Half of our guys haven’t been through two-a-days yet because they’ve been in class. Next week is all football. We’ve got one week of nothing but football. You can’t get into shape in a week but you can get in better shape than we were if we didn’t do anything,” he said.
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| Hogan |
“He can play a couple of slot positions already I believe,” Rodriguez said. “We could probably throw him in at quarterback and he would know some of the reads because he played in a very similar system in high school. He’s just a kid who understands football. I’ve been very impressed with him so far.”
The 6-foot, 175-pounder was the Virginia Big School player of the year who accounted for an incredible 58 touchdowns his senior season (32 passing and 26 rushing) as a quarterback.
