MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen addressed members of the media on Tuesday, March 28, 2017, at the Steve Antoline Family Football Practice Field.
On the comparison between the weather and his football team
They are very similar. They last change hourly. That’s a pretty good comparison right there honestly. This weather has changed eight times over the eight hours and these 18-22 year-old kids change somewhere in the neighborhood of one time an hour.
On redshirt junior safety Dravon Askew-Henry and redshirt senior wide receiver Ka’Raun White’s injuries
Injured guys. Won’t talk about (redshirt sophomore defensive lineman) (Adam) Shuler (II), (redshirt freshman defensive lineman) (Jeffery) Pooler (Jr.), (redshirt junior safety) Dravon (Askew-Henry), (redshirt sophomore wide receiver) Ka’Raun (White), (redshirt freshman wide receiver) (Steven) Smothers, (redshirt junior offensive lineman) Yodny (Cajuste), (redshirt junior offensive lineman) (Dontae) Angus, no sense in talking about any of those guys. Those guys don’t do anything for our football team. (Redshirt freshman offensive lineman) Jacob Buccigrossi unfortunately tore an ACL yesterday. I feel really bad for him. Coming off the shoulder last year during spring where he missed all of spring football last spring had worked himself into our second team center, looked really good. That’s new. Other than that, I’m not talking about any of those guys that don’t do anything for us right now.
On anything that looks good moving forward
It’s all a work in progress. We know who our players are. I think we have some talented individuals just need depth right now during spring. I’m just trying to piece together a lineup that we can practice with. Guys go down, numbers are low. It makes it tough to practice. So what’s clear is that we need more bodies which is naturally going to happen adding 15 more guys in May and 10 more guys in July and a few more after that. It’s clear we’re thin but talented. I think we’ve got some good players.
On the battle for the center position
Well good until the news came today. Sunday (redshirt freshman offensive lineman) Jacob (Buccigrossi) pulled out on a screen and it wasn’t a nasty injury he just fell. He had worked himself into number two. We were excited about that. Now we’re back to square one. We’ll rep (redshirt junior offensive lineman) (Ray) Raulerson, we’ll try to figure out who the next one is. We felt like we had a good second and third competition going on right there but now we’re back to square one. (Redshirt sophomore offensive lineman) Matt Jones looks good. He’s probably the surprise of spring.
On redshirt senior offensive lineman Kyle Bosch playing center
He’s too fat. He’ll have a hard time getting that ball through his thighs. (Redshirt sophomore offensive lineman) Matt Jones looks really good. I’m really, really happy with his progression, and we were really happy with (redshirt freshman offensive lineman) Jacob (Buccigrossi) but now we’re back to square one trying to find out who a number two is.
On sophomore safety Jovanni Stewart
Yeah, he looks good. He’s thick. I think he was a little lost last year as a freshman, which is very natural. Guys coming in, you try to get a few things out of them on special teams. The thing I noticed, he played on my brothers high school football team down in Texas, and what we noticed out of him was his knack of being around the ball a lot. Didn’t see that a whole lot last year but starting to see it a little bit more.
On the running backs
Yes, we got good competition. I wish we had that kind of competition at every one of the other positions, because it makes that a lot more fun to watch. (Senior running back) (Justin) Crawford looks good, (sophomore running back) Kennedy McKoy looks good, (sophomore running back) (Martell) Pettaway looks good. Kennedy’s versatility has looked really good. Watching him in the slot, he looks really good. Then (freshman running back) Tevin (Bush) is as good as advertised. He’s very versatile as well. You can hand it to him but he’s a natural pass catcher so his route running is much better than I thought it would be at this point. We’re so thin at receiver it’s sickening. (Sophomore wide receiver) Marcus Simms is out with a concussion. He’ll be out for a little while. We’ve got guys that I don’t know their names out there running routes we’re so thin. We need more numbers at receiver so we have to make up by having Tevin (Bush) and Kennedy (McKoy) and (redshirt junior tight end) (Trevon) Wesco and even (redshirt senior tight/end fullback) Eli (Elijah) Wellman be receivers when the time comes for that. The competition is good at that spot, I wish we had it everywhere.
On repping different players in the spring
It doesn’t hurt anything. Every spring you are going to rep guys that aren’t going to get a whole lot of snaps in the fall. That’s everywhere. You can’t get too bent out of shape about repping some guys that you know aren’t going to play. You have to kind of piece it together to where you are getting the totality of the reps. Quarterbacks are snapping the ball, they are communicating in the huddle. I have been happy with our o-line as far as being physical and holding up and getting a lot of reps. (Redshirt senior offensive lineman) Grant (Lingafelter) has looked decent. We have a certain amount of snaps that we know we have to get to, to be able to gather the cutups and all that good stuff. We are on our way towards getting that done.
On having more free time now that Assistant Coach (Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks) Jake Spavital coaches the quarterbacks
I run around. I am a referee, I am the special teams coach, I’m a weatherman, I’m a caddy on the golf cart. Get recruits and throw them in the back, run them around, talk to them a little bit when they are here. That’s what I do. Referee, now that’s fun. Mediator.
On if he would yell at himself when he is refereeing a practice
No, I’m not going to do that anymore, I don’t want to get thrown out of the game. I know the new rules. I am practicing putting myself in their shoes. Right?
On how Assistant Coach (Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks) Jake Spavital has improved since the last time he was on staff
I knew he was heading there. I didn’t want to lose him when I lost him, but it made a lot of sense for him to go call the plays at (Texas) A&M. Two years after that, coaching against them when he beat us in the bowl game, their offensive staff was in disarray at that point and he took it over and they played well on offense, that grabbed my attention. Then transitioning to another staff and taking a group that had lost a lot, I thought he did well at that as well. I have just been following him. I knew he would be ready, this was the time that made sense to get somebody in here that can give us some help and allowed me to do some different things.
On junior wide receiver David Sills V
He has a starting quarterback mentality in the receiver room. He brings a lot of football knowledge and familiarity of what we are doing. He is happy to be back, he is doing well. He had a little bit of a pulled hamstring for a couple of days. He is dressed out today so hopefully we get a lot more out of him. His presence in the huddle is really good. (Redshirt junior quarterback) Will (Grier) brings a lot to the presence aspect of being in the huddle leadership wise, his confidence in having David right next to him increases the leadership aspect of what that huddle is. Losing Skyler (Howard), losing (Tyler) Orlosky, we lost some pretty strong personalities, I think we are replacing them with some strong personalities as well.
