Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Mountaineers Eyeing Bright Future
December 23, 2017 05:50 PM | Football
DALLAS - I'm sure you've probably heard the phrase "win the trade" in professional sports. What that means is general managers are more interested in the positive reaction of trading a player to get a more highly rated one in order to make themselves look good in the eyes of their fans.
Sometimes those trades make their teams better and other times they don't.
College football coaches build their rosters a little differently, but winning signing day would probably be the sport's equivalent. West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen admits signing day used to drive him nuts, worrying about how highly his recruits were ranked or angry that some of his prospects were cherry-picked in the 11th hour.
Today, he takes a much different approach to recruiting. It's no longer a matter of winning signing day, but instead building the best roster of players he can by the time August rolls around.
That means adding four-year transfers at the beginning of the semester, such as the Miami tandem of Jack Allison and Jovani Haskins, or Alabama wide receiver T.J. Simmons; that means scouring junior colleges to find the best available two- and three-year prospects.
That also means having a plan and selling it to his draft-eligible juniors such as quarterback Will Grier, wide receiver David Sills V and offensive tackle Yodny Cajuste.
When you add all of that together, spanning December to August, that's what he's trying to accomplish when he's putting together his football team for 2018.
"We never try to win signing day," Holgorsen said Wednesday. "I would be the first to admit that I left signing day, especially seven, six or five years ago, kind of angry at times. Losing a guy or not being ranked as high as you thought you should be, and I was like, 'What are you doing?'
"I just think that this plays into how we have done recruiting here for the last three or four years," he said. "There are a lot of programs out there that just try and win that day (signing day), and they are not even coaching anymore."
Of the 20 signed players announced earlier this week, most of them had been committed to West Virginia for some time. They were vetted and evaluated and relationships were cultivated based on the needs and the vision of the program.
With few exceptions, the vast majority of the players West Virginia targeted ended up following through with their commitments on signing day. Some had schools come in late and try and pry them away when players they were recruiting changed their minds.
"I have seen guys panic and offer guys that they don't know," Holgorsen said. "I have seen it over the course of the last 72 hours of specific programs approaching our guys that have been committed for a year and throw offers out to guys that they don't even know. To me, that doesn't make any sense, which is why they didn't get them.
"Building it the way we have built it, it is good, and I like where we are at with it."
Offensive coordinator Jake Spavital's vision for the offense included more athletic, mobile tight ends to give West Virginia a more multiple look on offense.
So, he targeted 6-foot-5-inch, 230-pound Mike O'Laughlin from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and 6-foot-5, 240-pound T.J. Banks from East Allegheny High near Pittsburgh.
He sat down with both of them, explained his plan to them, showed them the tight end packages he had at Texas A&M and the small package he installed at Cal and how he planned to do it at WVU.
That's how West Virginia was able to fight off Ohio State's late pursuit of O'Laughlin.
"I thought we did a good job of getting on these tight ends early," Spavital said. "We got them here on campus and we had to bump up their visits and seal it up."
What Spavital envisions for West Virginia's offense with these bigger, athletic, more mobile pass catchers is something similar to what the New England Patriots do with tight end Rob Gronkowski.
Anybody who watched the Pittsburgh-New England game last Sunday and saw how difficult Gronkowski was for the Steelers to handle has to be excited with the direction Spavital wants to take the offense.
"You look at the New England Patriots, you will see situations where they have three, four tight ends in the game and they are motioning them in and out and it causes issues with matchups," Spavital explained. "I think that is where the game is going, or at least trying to go. Some teams can't do it because they don't have the body type, but I think we're now getting the right body type. You take a guy like Gronkowski and you see him take over a game playing tight end, receiver, fullback and everywhere."
Pairing the three new ones he's got with an outstanding group of returning wide receivers, plus a couple of burners on the outside, enables West Virginia to cover the entire field with its passing game without tipping its hand with certain personnel groupings.
"Moving forward, it's important to get some guys with speed, too, so you've got the big body types plus some burners so (defenses) have to acknowledge them," Spavital said.
The Mountaineers also finally have the quarterback position stabilized after years of trying, going all the way back to when they inherited Geno Smith in 2011. If Smith, or four years later, Skyler Howard, had gotten a serious injury, West Virginia would have been in deep trouble.
If you look back at last year's team, there is no way West Virginia would have won 10 football games without Howard under center, no matter what your opinion of him as a college quarterback was.
WVU was in a similar situation with Will Grier this year when he left the Texas game in the first quarter and backup Chris Chugunov had little experience under his belt replacing him.
Now, moving past next Tuesday's Heart of Dallas Bowl game against Utah, West Virginia is going to have five capable quarterbacks covering all four classes when the winter semester begins.
Grier returning covers the senior class, an experienced Chugunov will be a junior; David Israel and Miami transfer Jack Allison have the sophomore class taken care of and the Mountaineers got the quarterback they targeted for this year's class in Colliersville, Tennessee's, Trey Lowe, the grandson of Alabama and San Diego Chargers star linebacker Woodrow Lowe.
"We're getting it where we want it to be," Spavital said of his quarterback situation. "Now, we've got some time where we can put some development on Trey. He doesn't have to rush. He's coming in here in January so he's going to get some valuable reps, but with Will coming back, that allows him to learn by example, and that's sometimes the best way to learn in this offense.
"What are his answers? What are his checks? What is he doing in certain situations? That was what I wanted where we could get a year to develop Trey and once Will leaves we're going to have a pretty healthy quarterback competition with some good players going at it."
Defensively, Tony Gibson's two big wish lists were bigger, more physically capable defensive lineman and some long, lean, fast cover corners. He was able to fill three slots up front with guys weighing 285 pounds or more, and he added two defensive backs with Power 5 experience in Keith Washington (Michigan) and Josh Norwood (Ohio State).
He said he is looking for one more defensive lineman and two more corners.
"Kids say they are committed. Well, if they don't sign (early) then they're not committed," Gibson said. "This cleans it up for us. We are going to have two or three scholarships left on defense. We need to target two corners and one D-lineman. Those are positions of need for us right now and we need to go get it. I don't want 240-pound ends. I want 290-pound guys."
That likely means the junior college route for that final defensive line spot.
As for defensive linemen in the program right now, Gibson said some of them are going to have to start eating more food.
Overall, Gibson believes his defense is going to be in a much, much better place next August when all of the pieces are back in place.
"I think what happened this year is it got on them so fast," he said. "Here are nine new guys and some of those nine weren't ready. Then with injuries those other five, six guys we had to throw in there weren't ready. A year from now, we can survive injuries. This year we couldn't. We tried to. We hung on and we put band-aids on a lot of different things. As a team, we were constantly patching things up and that was our biggest problem.
"Now, we will have a whole offseason with a lot of these guys coming back."
Bowl Bits: Tony Gibson identified three young players who are beginning to emerge during the developmental practices leading up the Heart of Dallas Bowl game against Utah… Freshman safety E.J. Brown from Stone Mountain, Georgia, is a player who is "very, very physical" according to Gibson … Freshman safety Exree Loe from nearby Johnstown, Pennsylvania, has caught his eye and will be moved down to Sam linebacker next year … "I told him to quit fighting it and start eating," Gibson joked … Gibson said Loe's move to linebacker has freed up another scholarship spot for the secondary in this year's recruiting class … The other player Gibson identified is former Temple, Lackawanna College and Penn State defensive lineman Brenon Thrift, formerly of Gateway High near Pittsburgh … Thrift has some size at 292 pounds, and Gibson believes he will be able to help the defense next season … As for Tuesday's game, Gibson compared Utah offensively to TCU and Kansas State, and much closer to K-State when they use multiple tight ends and fullbacks … "They are watching our film probably licking their chops thinking they can run for 300 against us," Gibson said … Gibson said the last 30 days following the Oklahoma loss have been miserable for him. "I've made it as miserable as I could on these players on defense. I don't want to have that same feeling for another six, seven months," he said … The West Virginia coaches have repeatedly talked about how physical they expect Utah to play on Tuesday … Friday's practice at The Star, the Cowboys' training facility in Frisco, Texas, began with a brief period of Oklahoma drills, which got the players fired up … The team is scheduled to practice this afternoon at Highland Park High and then enjoy dinner and activities at Top Golf this evening … The weather in Dallas today is cool but sunny.
Sometimes those trades make their teams better and other times they don't.
College football coaches build their rosters a little differently, but winning signing day would probably be the sport's equivalent. West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen admits signing day used to drive him nuts, worrying about how highly his recruits were ranked or angry that some of his prospects were cherry-picked in the 11th hour.
Today, he takes a much different approach to recruiting. It's no longer a matter of winning signing day, but instead building the best roster of players he can by the time August rolls around.
That means adding four-year transfers at the beginning of the semester, such as the Miami tandem of Jack Allison and Jovani Haskins, or Alabama wide receiver T.J. Simmons; that means scouring junior colleges to find the best available two- and three-year prospects.
That also means having a plan and selling it to his draft-eligible juniors such as quarterback Will Grier, wide receiver David Sills V and offensive tackle Yodny Cajuste.
When you add all of that together, spanning December to August, that's what he's trying to accomplish when he's putting together his football team for 2018.
"We never try to win signing day," Holgorsen said Wednesday. "I would be the first to admit that I left signing day, especially seven, six or five years ago, kind of angry at times. Losing a guy or not being ranked as high as you thought you should be, and I was like, 'What are you doing?'
"I just think that this plays into how we have done recruiting here for the last three or four years," he said. "There are a lot of programs out there that just try and win that day (signing day), and they are not even coaching anymore."
Of the 20 signed players announced earlier this week, most of them had been committed to West Virginia for some time. They were vetted and evaluated and relationships were cultivated based on the needs and the vision of the program.
With few exceptions, the vast majority of the players West Virginia targeted ended up following through with their commitments on signing day. Some had schools come in late and try and pry them away when players they were recruiting changed their minds.
"I have seen guys panic and offer guys that they don't know," Holgorsen said. "I have seen it over the course of the last 72 hours of specific programs approaching our guys that have been committed for a year and throw offers out to guys that they don't even know. To me, that doesn't make any sense, which is why they didn't get them.
"Building it the way we have built it, it is good, and I like where we are at with it."
Offensive coordinator Jake Spavital's vision for the offense included more athletic, mobile tight ends to give West Virginia a more multiple look on offense.
So, he targeted 6-foot-5-inch, 230-pound Mike O'Laughlin from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and 6-foot-5, 240-pound T.J. Banks from East Allegheny High near Pittsburgh.
He sat down with both of them, explained his plan to them, showed them the tight end packages he had at Texas A&M and the small package he installed at Cal and how he planned to do it at WVU.
That's how West Virginia was able to fight off Ohio State's late pursuit of O'Laughlin.
"I thought we did a good job of getting on these tight ends early," Spavital said. "We got them here on campus and we had to bump up their visits and seal it up."
What Spavital envisions for West Virginia's offense with these bigger, athletic, more mobile pass catchers is something similar to what the New England Patriots do with tight end Rob Gronkowski.
Anybody who watched the Pittsburgh-New England game last Sunday and saw how difficult Gronkowski was for the Steelers to handle has to be excited with the direction Spavital wants to take the offense.
"You look at the New England Patriots, you will see situations where they have three, four tight ends in the game and they are motioning them in and out and it causes issues with matchups," Spavital explained. "I think that is where the game is going, or at least trying to go. Some teams can't do it because they don't have the body type, but I think we're now getting the right body type. You take a guy like Gronkowski and you see him take over a game playing tight end, receiver, fullback and everywhere."
Pairing the three new ones he's got with an outstanding group of returning wide receivers, plus a couple of burners on the outside, enables West Virginia to cover the entire field with its passing game without tipping its hand with certain personnel groupings.
"Moving forward, it's important to get some guys with speed, too, so you've got the big body types plus some burners so (defenses) have to acknowledge them," Spavital said.
The Mountaineers also finally have the quarterback position stabilized after years of trying, going all the way back to when they inherited Geno Smith in 2011. If Smith, or four years later, Skyler Howard, had gotten a serious injury, West Virginia would have been in deep trouble.
If you look back at last year's team, there is no way West Virginia would have won 10 football games without Howard under center, no matter what your opinion of him as a college quarterback was.
WVU was in a similar situation with Will Grier this year when he left the Texas game in the first quarter and backup Chris Chugunov had little experience under his belt replacing him.
Now, moving past next Tuesday's Heart of Dallas Bowl game against Utah, West Virginia is going to have five capable quarterbacks covering all four classes when the winter semester begins.
Grier returning covers the senior class, an experienced Chugunov will be a junior; David Israel and Miami transfer Jack Allison have the sophomore class taken care of and the Mountaineers got the quarterback they targeted for this year's class in Colliersville, Tennessee's, Trey Lowe, the grandson of Alabama and San Diego Chargers star linebacker Woodrow Lowe.
"We're getting it where we want it to be," Spavital said of his quarterback situation. "Now, we've got some time where we can put some development on Trey. He doesn't have to rush. He's coming in here in January so he's going to get some valuable reps, but with Will coming back, that allows him to learn by example, and that's sometimes the best way to learn in this offense.
"What are his answers? What are his checks? What is he doing in certain situations? That was what I wanted where we could get a year to develop Trey and once Will leaves we're going to have a pretty healthy quarterback competition with some good players going at it."
Defensively, Tony Gibson's two big wish lists were bigger, more physically capable defensive lineman and some long, lean, fast cover corners. He was able to fill three slots up front with guys weighing 285 pounds or more, and he added two defensive backs with Power 5 experience in Keith Washington (Michigan) and Josh Norwood (Ohio State).
He said he is looking for one more defensive lineman and two more corners.
"Kids say they are committed. Well, if they don't sign (early) then they're not committed," Gibson said. "This cleans it up for us. We are going to have two or three scholarships left on defense. We need to target two corners and one D-lineman. Those are positions of need for us right now and we need to go get it. I don't want 240-pound ends. I want 290-pound guys."
That likely means the junior college route for that final defensive line spot.
As for defensive linemen in the program right now, Gibson said some of them are going to have to start eating more food.
Overall, Gibson believes his defense is going to be in a much, much better place next August when all of the pieces are back in place.
"I think what happened this year is it got on them so fast," he said. "Here are nine new guys and some of those nine weren't ready. Then with injuries those other five, six guys we had to throw in there weren't ready. A year from now, we can survive injuries. This year we couldn't. We tried to. We hung on and we put band-aids on a lot of different things. As a team, we were constantly patching things up and that was our biggest problem.
"Now, we will have a whole offseason with a lot of these guys coming back."
Bowl Bits: Tony Gibson identified three young players who are beginning to emerge during the developmental practices leading up the Heart of Dallas Bowl game against Utah… Freshman safety E.J. Brown from Stone Mountain, Georgia, is a player who is "very, very physical" according to Gibson … Freshman safety Exree Loe from nearby Johnstown, Pennsylvania, has caught his eye and will be moved down to Sam linebacker next year … "I told him to quit fighting it and start eating," Gibson joked … Gibson said Loe's move to linebacker has freed up another scholarship spot for the secondary in this year's recruiting class … The other player Gibson identified is former Temple, Lackawanna College and Penn State defensive lineman Brenon Thrift, formerly of Gateway High near Pittsburgh … Thrift has some size at 292 pounds, and Gibson believes he will be able to help the defense next season … As for Tuesday's game, Gibson compared Utah offensively to TCU and Kansas State, and much closer to K-State when they use multiple tight ends and fullbacks … "They are watching our film probably licking their chops thinking they can run for 300 against us," Gibson said … Gibson said the last 30 days following the Oklahoma loss have been miserable for him. "I've made it as miserable as I could on these players on defense. I don't want to have that same feeling for another six, seven months," he said … The West Virginia coaches have repeatedly talked about how physical they expect Utah to play on Tuesday … Friday's practice at The Star, the Cowboys' training facility in Frisco, Texas, began with a brief period of Oklahoma drills, which got the players fired up … The team is scheduled to practice this afternoon at Highland Park High and then enjoy dinner and activities at Top Golf this evening … The weather in Dallas today is cool but sunny.
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