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Frosh LB Long Making Plays
October 06, 2016 10:46 AM | Football
That No. 11 you saw out there running around all over the field making plays against Kansas State … his name is David Long and he’s got the makings of becoming a pretty good outside linebacker for the West Virginia Mountaineers.
Mountaineer coaches informed Long a day after West Virginia’s too-close-for-comfort 35-32 victory over BYU two weeks ago that he was going to be the team’s starting outside linebacker for West Virginia’s Big 12 opener against Kansas State.
Defensive coordinator Tony Gibson simply couldn’t wait any longer to get Long in the starting lineup.
“He’s a guy that makes plays,” Gibson said after last Saturday’s 17-16 victory over the Wildcats. “When you watch him practice, and even in games, every time he’s in the game he makes plays so I knew it was time to do something different there.”
“He just brought me up and said it was time for me to go in,” Long added. “I just said, ‘Yes sir.’ And that was it.”
Well, not quite.
“I texted my mom and dad but it really wasn’t like a big (celebration),” he said. “I just knew it was going to come sooner or later and I just wanted it to happen. I just went out there and gave it my all.”
Long’s “all” against K-State included three tackles, one for a loss, in helping the defense get back some of its mojo. Gibson’s Gang held the Wildcats to only 108 yards of offense and three points in the second half, buying the offense enough time to generate 17 second-half points to avoid a fifth straight loss to the Wildcats.
Long admitted his first career start playing in front of 61,000 people at Milan Puskar Stadium was a “crazy” experience.
“My heart was beating,” he said. “I knew it was going to be a dogfight and I knew we just had to play all four quarters to get the win and we did.”
The man who gets to watch Long on a daily basis standing on the other side of the field, coach Dana Holgorsen, says he likes what he’s seen so far from his young linebacker.
“He was on special teams for the first three games and his production was really good, so we felt like it was time to make a change,” Holgorsen said. “It’s not surprising to me. I watched him all last year, trying to block him when he was on scout team. I suggested on numerous, numerous occasions to pull his redshirt and play him because I thought he was game-ready last year.”
But Gibson had the luxury of sitting Long down and letting him learn behind some pretty good linebackers last fall.
And Long learned quite a bit watching Nick Kwiatkoski, Jared Barber and Shaq Petteway operate Gibson’s tricky 3-3 stack defense.
“It helped me because I got to learn more,” Long explained. “I got to look from the sideline because I had never really been on the sideline before and that’s when it really hit me hard (that he wasn’t going to play last season). I had to learn right there, so that’s what helped me.”
The defensive coaches have been raving about Long from the moment he stepped on campus, despite his relatively un-outside linebacker stature of 5-feet-11 inches and slightly more than 220 pounds.
Long produced almost 300 career tackles during his outstanding prep career at Winton Woods High in Cincinnati, including 110 tackles during his senior season to earn Ohio Division II honorable mention all-state honors.
He was rated a three-star prospect by all of the scouting services, which never gets the fans too excited, but whenever Gibson put on Long’s tape what he always saw was five-star production.
Then, when Long got to WVU and began practicing with the team, it was clear to everyone that this guy is virtually impossible to block.
“I’m closer to the ground and I can cut faster so I use that to my advantage,” Long explained. “I just keep my eyes all over the place and keep my head on a swivel. I know the linemen are big and slow, but I know I’ve just got to use my advantage, which is my leverage.”
“He’s born with that,” Gibson added. “I have nothing to do with that. I just coach him to go to the right spot. Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t, and he still makes plays.”
Gibson anticipates David Long making many, many more plays in the coming weeks - and years.
“The kid can play football,” he said. “I’ve said it. That kid, in four years, here he may break every record this is for tackling people. He’s that active.”
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