Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Moore Developing WVU’s Offensive Line Around McKivitz and Sills
August 06, 2019 04:01 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – When you really think about it, building your offensive line around Colton McKivitz and Josh Sills is not a bad place to start.Depending upon to whom you read or listen, those two are probably West Virginia's best NFL prospects right now on offense.
When was the last time the Mountaineers had two potential pro guys playing on their offensive line at the same time?
Since two-platoon football was introduced in 1965, West Virginia has had just 11 offensive linemen taken in the NFL Draft.
Let that sink in for a minute … 11.
Jim Carlen didn't have a single one, nor did Frank Cignetti. Bobby Bowden had one - center Al Gluchoski, taken in the 14th round in 1976 as the 380th overall pick, which is free agent territory these days.
To be fair, the offensive systems played a role in this. Those three coaches utilized a Veer attack that didn't require the biggest offensive linemen to be successful. In fact, when Jim Braxton was playing fullback for the Mountaineers he was actually bigger than the guys blocking in front of him.
"You blocked low and you blocked at people's feet," Bowden once recalled. "When you start blocking high you've got to be strong to knock them out of the way."
When Don Nehlen arrived in 1980 and brought the Michigan system to Morgantown, he wanted big, physical linemen like they had in Ann Arbor, but he quickly realized that those guys are really hard to get when you are no longer in Ann Arbor.
Nehlen's first big-league offensive line recruit was Pittsburgh's Brian Smider, who had a very solid college career and eventually became a late-round draft choice in 1989, but he never made an NFL roster.
Two of Nehlen's best offensive linemen, Brian Jozwiak and Rich Braham, were developmental players. Really, just Mike Compton and perhaps Solomon Page came to West Virginia as ready-made offensive line recruits. Neal Brown likes to say big wide receivers are "open by birth," well, Compton and Page were big enough to block by birth.
West Virginia reverted to the smaller, more agile blockers when Rich Rodriguez installed his zone-read system and it remained that way when Bill Stewart took over the program in 2008.
It wasn't until West Virginia got into the Big 12 and Dana Holgorsen transitioned the offense to suit what the rest of the Big 12 was doing that the Mountaineers began producing pro-caliber offensive lineman again.
Offensive guard Mark Glowinski was taken in the fourth round of the 2015 draft and Yodny Cajuste was a third-round choice last spring. And now there are McKivitz and Sills, two high-level guys on opposite sides of center Chase Behrndt.
"I promise you, I've coached a lot worse," offensive line coach Matt Moore joked.
In order for West Virginia to have a really effective offensive line this year, Moore admits he's got to fill in those other pieces around McKivitz at left tackle and Sills at right guard.
"The O-line, you are only as good as your worst player," Moore admitted. "It's not about great plays. It's about your bad plays not being terrible."
The guys getting a lot of the one reps right now at the other three spots – Behrndt at center, Michael Brown at left guard and Kelby Wickline at right tackle – have to emerge. According to Moore, two have to be solid and a third probably has to substantially exceed expectations.
"One of those three guys needs to be great and the other two need to be good - and all three are completely unproven," Moore mentioned.
Neal Brown's take on his offensive line echoes his O-line coach.
"We've got to have a minimum of eight guys ready to play in this league," Brown said. "(McKivitz) strives to be better than good. He strives to be great. He strives to be a high-round draft pick and an All-Big 12 player.
"Josh Sills has an opportunity to be an upper-end player in our league, and I think Mike Brown continues to improve. Kelby Wickline continues to improve. I thought he got steadily better as we went through the spring and he's in the best shape he's been," Brown added.
That leaves Behrndt at the all-important center position where everything begins. Other than quarterback, center is the only other position on the football field that handles the football on every single play.
"A lot of the attributes we look for in a center, Chase has them," Brown noted. "He has got to play with better pad level and that's been a challenge for him. And we've got to get some depth."
Which is where Moore comes in.
He mentioned converted defensive end James Gmiter as a possibility as a backup right guard. Gmiter has solid athleticism coming from the defensive side of the ball and possesses exceptional strength, but he is still extremely raw.
Junior college transfer John Hughes possesses outstanding versatility and is capable of playing guard or tackle, but he's also still figuring things out.
Guard Briason Mays improved his bench press by 40 pounds over the summer and now has more strength to go along with above-average athleticism.
And then there are the two good-looking freshman prospects, Parker Moorer and Brandon Yates. Moore is wisely working Yates behind McKivitz at left tackle and Moore behind Sills at right guard in the hopes that they can absorb some of what those guys are doing.
Both are most likely not going to be ready when the ball goes into the air against James Madison on Aug. 31, but that's not to say they won't get there later in the year when the coaching staff begins looking more closely at freshmen for playing time to fulfill their four-game redshirt window.
The parts are certainly there, they just need lots of finetuning.
"I feel much better about my group up front, and I feel much better about their togetherness," Moore said. "We're really talented at a couple of spots and we've just got to fill in those other spots. I think there it's just one of those things where we've got to keep pushing."
He added, "Being an excellent O-line is about the mundane. You look at the greatest ones who played the game and it's boring because they always take the same steps; it's the same footwork, same pad level … everything is the same."
Moore said having some explosive playmakers with the football in their hands behind them will help matters as well.
"We've got some really good dudes in that room so what are they most comfortable with? Do they like outside runs? Do they like inside runs? So we're going to develop our offensive line around what those guys are really good at," he said.
In the same vein, Moore is also going to develop it around those two really good guys up front who should be keeping the pro people's eyes on West Virginia this fall.
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