Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Football Notebook: Holgorsen Visits The Queen City
May 29, 2018 11:37 AM | Football, Blog
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - There are presently three players from North Carolina on this year's West Virginia University football roster.
Of course, the nation's No. 1 returning quarterback, Will Grier, hails from Davidson just north of Charlotte. Top returning tailback Kennedy McKoy grew up close to Charlotte in Lexington, North Carolina, while incoming recruit Bryce Wheaton is coming to WVU from Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, which is northeast of Charlotte and just south of Raleigh.
And if Dana Holgorsen has his way, there will be a lot more players from the Tar Heel State on his rosters in the coming years.
Fueled by the success and attention Grier has received since coming to West Virginia, the Mountaineers are now making North Carolina one of their East Coast recruiting priorities.
Offensive coordinator Jake Spavital spent a couple of weeks visiting Charlotte area high schools last December. He made another week-long trip in January and has since returned for a couple of weeks in late May.
Holgorsen has also spent a considerable amount of time in the Queen City, attending a Belk Kickoff Game Luncheon at Quail Hollow Golf Club last Thursday and then speaking at the Charlotte Touchdown Club Luncheon in downtown Charlotte on Friday.
His face and the Flying WV are becoming quite familiar in Charlotte these days.
"Honestly, and I don't mind saying this, but probably my biggest regret in recruiting since I've been at WVU is not focusing more on Charlotte or near here," Holgorsen said last Thursday morning.
It certainly makes sense to spend more time there. Charlotte is one of the fastest growing cities in the country with lots of WVU graduates, enabling recruiting connections to be made more easily just as Don Nehlen once did in South Florida in the early 1980s.
Having the most recognizable player in the state on your roster doesn't hurt things either whenever Holgorsen and Spavital walk into high schools down there.
"We're so entrenched in Florida, as everybody knows, so you run out of manpower at some point, but we're going to make sure we do our due diligence, really, in the entire state of North Carolina," Holgorsen pointed out.
"There are a lot of connections and a lot of name recognition right now with Will Grier," he added. "I've been down there doing some speaking engagements and fundraising, and Jake has been out there promoting us. and there is a lot of excitement about that."
Will that translate into more North Carolina signees come next December and February?
Stay tuned.
More from Holgorsen during his trip down to Charlotte late last week …
* The coach said he is excited about the recent addition of Clemson transfer Jabril Robinson to West Virginia's defensive line. He admitted at the conclusion of spring drills that he was very pleased with the progress the D-line has made and the immediate additions of Robinson and USC transfer Kenny Bigelow only make the unit stronger.
"It's going to be night and day, I think, from where we will be this year compared to where we were last year," Holgorsen said. "We had so many young kids and guys that weren't ready to play last year and now those guys are all older, and they're going to be better, plus we're adding older guys.
"We're adding bigger bodies andolder guys," he continued. "You add Jabril Robinson, who can start anywhere in the country - he just couldn't start at Clemson based on those guys have four first-round draft picks. And then Kenny Bigelow, same thing; USC has got great players. His comfort level with West Virginia and his (high school) teammates (being at WVU), he's got a lot of guys he knows. He's a big, 6-4, 305-pound nose guard, which is a little different than what we had playing there last year."
As for Robinson, Holgorsen expects to see an athletic, disruptive player out on the edge.
"He's going to be able to put some pressure on the quarterback, and he's big enough to play a B-gap scheme if we need him to," Holgorsen said. "That was a big sign. Both of those guys are really going to help us."
* As Holgorsen has stated repeatedly since last December, constructing his 2018 football roster is a year-round proposition lasting all the way up to August, and possibly beyond.
"We've got room for more," he said. "We've got one (scholarship) left so there will be another announcement in the coming weeks and then we'll still add guys in August. There is a situation where a couple of guys will show up in August, and we're going to be able to add those guys as well."
Most of the late additions have come on defense, which is understandable considering what Holgorsen has returning on the offensive side of the ball.
"Really, whoever becomes available to help us win football games is what we're going to focus on adding," he said.
* Holgorsen and Tennessee's Jeremy Pruitt entertained the Charlotte Sports Foundation board members during their question-and-answer session last Thursday afternoon at Quail Hollow Golf Club.
The two coaches were in Charlotte to promote the Belk Kickoff Game to be played Saturday, Sept. 1 at Bank America Stadium.
Holgorsen admitted that there are going to be a lot of unknowns preparing for a Tennessee team undergoing significant changes with Pruitt taking over, but he said he plans on having a few surprises for the Volunteers to deal with as well.
He joked of installing the wishbone on offense and playing more four-man fronts on defense.
On a more serious note, Holgorsen said a lot of the preliminary prep work on Tennessee has already begun.
"Spring is all about focusing on yourself and then you get into the recruiting aspect of it and fundraising aspect of it to the point where you have to worry about all of that and then in June you can work with your guys and start having some free time to be able to get going on your first opponent," he said. "Then there is vacation and camps so there is a lot of things to get through.
"The GAs will do the prep work and the coordinators will begin to formulate a plan, but there are too many things to focus on for an opponent 100 days out."
That means a substantial amount of research and keeping up on any snippets of news coming out of Knoxville will be going on in the Milan Puskar Center over the course of the next eight to 10 weeks.
"You've got to get into the weeds and figure out things," Holgorsen pointed out. "There are not a whole lot of secrets in this sport anymore with social media, (coaching) connections and all of that. We'll be able to get a pretty good idea but for the first game, I don't care if it's a new staff or not a new staff … we're going to be doing some different things, too, that they're not going to be able to prepare for. That's just a first game, but there is enough information out there to be able to figure it out."
* Following his luncheon appearance Thursday, Holgorsen was able to get on Quail Hollow for another springtime round of golf there. He was also invited to play in the Pro Am prior to the Wells Fargo Championship in late April.
"It reminds me a lot of Augusta," Holgorsen said. "It's a wonderful golf club and an unbelievable golf course and it's way too good for me, because I'm not very good. It was a lot of fun, and we had a good time down there."
Of course, the nation's No. 1 returning quarterback, Will Grier, hails from Davidson just north of Charlotte. Top returning tailback Kennedy McKoy grew up close to Charlotte in Lexington, North Carolina, while incoming recruit Bryce Wheaton is coming to WVU from Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, which is northeast of Charlotte and just south of Raleigh.
And if Dana Holgorsen has his way, there will be a lot more players from the Tar Heel State on his rosters in the coming years.
Fueled by the success and attention Grier has received since coming to West Virginia, the Mountaineers are now making North Carolina one of their East Coast recruiting priorities.
Offensive coordinator Jake Spavital spent a couple of weeks visiting Charlotte area high schools last December. He made another week-long trip in January and has since returned for a couple of weeks in late May.
Holgorsen has also spent a considerable amount of time in the Queen City, attending a Belk Kickoff Game Luncheon at Quail Hollow Golf Club last Thursday and then speaking at the Charlotte Touchdown Club Luncheon in downtown Charlotte on Friday.
His face and the Flying WV are becoming quite familiar in Charlotte these days.
"Honestly, and I don't mind saying this, but probably my biggest regret in recruiting since I've been at WVU is not focusing more on Charlotte or near here," Holgorsen said last Thursday morning.
It certainly makes sense to spend more time there. Charlotte is one of the fastest growing cities in the country with lots of WVU graduates, enabling recruiting connections to be made more easily just as Don Nehlen once did in South Florida in the early 1980s.
Having the most recognizable player in the state on your roster doesn't hurt things either whenever Holgorsen and Spavital walk into high schools down there.
"We're so entrenched in Florida, as everybody knows, so you run out of manpower at some point, but we're going to make sure we do our due diligence, really, in the entire state of North Carolina," Holgorsen pointed out.
"There are a lot of connections and a lot of name recognition right now with Will Grier," he added. "I've been down there doing some speaking engagements and fundraising, and Jake has been out there promoting us. and there is a lot of excitement about that."
Will that translate into more North Carolina signees come next December and February?
Stay tuned.
More from Holgorsen during his trip down to Charlotte late last week …
* The coach said he is excited about the recent addition of Clemson transfer Jabril Robinson to West Virginia's defensive line. He admitted at the conclusion of spring drills that he was very pleased with the progress the D-line has made and the immediate additions of Robinson and USC transfer Kenny Bigelow only make the unit stronger.
"It's going to be night and day, I think, from where we will be this year compared to where we were last year," Holgorsen said. "We had so many young kids and guys that weren't ready to play last year and now those guys are all older, and they're going to be better, plus we're adding older guys.
"We're adding bigger bodies andolder guys," he continued. "You add Jabril Robinson, who can start anywhere in the country - he just couldn't start at Clemson based on those guys have four first-round draft picks. And then Kenny Bigelow, same thing; USC has got great players. His comfort level with West Virginia and his (high school) teammates (being at WVU), he's got a lot of guys he knows. He's a big, 6-4, 305-pound nose guard, which is a little different than what we had playing there last year."
As for Robinson, Holgorsen expects to see an athletic, disruptive player out on the edge.
"He's going to be able to put some pressure on the quarterback, and he's big enough to play a B-gap scheme if we need him to," Holgorsen said. "That was a big sign. Both of those guys are really going to help us."
* As Holgorsen has stated repeatedly since last December, constructing his 2018 football roster is a year-round proposition lasting all the way up to August, and possibly beyond.
"We've got room for more," he said. "We've got one (scholarship) left so there will be another announcement in the coming weeks and then we'll still add guys in August. There is a situation where a couple of guys will show up in August, and we're going to be able to add those guys as well."
Most of the late additions have come on defense, which is understandable considering what Holgorsen has returning on the offensive side of the ball.
"Really, whoever becomes available to help us win football games is what we're going to focus on adding," he said.
* Holgorsen and Tennessee's Jeremy Pruitt entertained the Charlotte Sports Foundation board members during their question-and-answer session last Thursday afternoon at Quail Hollow Golf Club.
The two coaches were in Charlotte to promote the Belk Kickoff Game to be played Saturday, Sept. 1 at Bank America Stadium.
Holgorsen admitted that there are going to be a lot of unknowns preparing for a Tennessee team undergoing significant changes with Pruitt taking over, but he said he plans on having a few surprises for the Volunteers to deal with as well.
He joked of installing the wishbone on offense and playing more four-man fronts on defense.
On a more serious note, Holgorsen said a lot of the preliminary prep work on Tennessee has already begun.
"Spring is all about focusing on yourself and then you get into the recruiting aspect of it and fundraising aspect of it to the point where you have to worry about all of that and then in June you can work with your guys and start having some free time to be able to get going on your first opponent," he said. "Then there is vacation and camps so there is a lot of things to get through.
"The GAs will do the prep work and the coordinators will begin to formulate a plan, but there are too many things to focus on for an opponent 100 days out."
That means a substantial amount of research and keeping up on any snippets of news coming out of Knoxville will be going on in the Milan Puskar Center over the course of the next eight to 10 weeks.
"You've got to get into the weeds and figure out things," Holgorsen pointed out. "There are not a whole lot of secrets in this sport anymore with social media, (coaching) connections and all of that. We'll be able to get a pretty good idea but for the first game, I don't care if it's a new staff or not a new staff … we're going to be doing some different things, too, that they're not going to be able to prepare for. That's just a first game, but there is enough information out there to be able to figure it out."
* Following his luncheon appearance Thursday, Holgorsen was able to get on Quail Hollow for another springtime round of golf there. He was also invited to play in the Pro Am prior to the Wells Fargo Championship in late April.
"It reminds me a lot of Augusta," Holgorsen said. "It's a wonderful golf club and an unbelievable golf course and it's way too good for me, because I'm not very good. It was a lot of fun, and we had a good time down there."
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