MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – For those of you old enough to remember, Wendy's used to run commercials with an old, white-haired lady who would pull up to the drive-through window and ask, "Where's the beef?"
 
Over the last couple of years, that's a question West Virginia University football fans were asking about the Mountaineers' defensive line: "Where's the beef?"
 
West Virginia's defensive lines were consistently considered among the smallest in the Big 12, probably more closely resembling the sizes you would see from non-Power 5 programs. The Mountaineers were resourceful enough to work around this in many instances, but not always.
 
There have been some games recently when West Virginia's big dudes up front needed some bigger cabooses.
 
"Our system is built for our D-line to be productive, and we've had success with smaller guys, and I think there is still a place for that," West Virginia coach Neal Brown said earlier this week, "but we haven't had as much success with the teams that are bigger and are at their best running the football over the last two years."
 
This became apparent to Brown a couple of years ago against Texas when the much-bigger Longhorns controlled the line of scrimmage and won the game at the end.
 
"It became really clear that we had to get bigger, and we had to get more multiple," Brown admitted. "We couldn't be a group that just lined up and played games and moved our front. We had to have the ability to play a true four-down front and play against some of these teams that get into 12-personnel."
 
When A.J. Jackson was hired last year to coach West Virginia's defensive line, he came here with the notion of having to come up with a bunch of different pass rushing drills to get his guys prepared for the Air Raid offenses they were going to face in the Big 12. However, as he began studying the teams the Mountaineers were going to face, he realized about half of them now are using sets with bigger personnel.
 
In other words, big boy football.
 
West Virginia faced it in the bowl game against Minnesota, it's going to face it in the season opener this August at Heinz Field against Pitt, and it's going to see it more frequently in the Big 12 this fall.
 
Defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley said Thursday West Virginia needed to recruit bigger body types to match the teams on its future schedules.
 
"You try and match your personnel as you see it off your schedules and pay a little closer attention to down-the-road schedules as we go along with coaching changes, especially within your league," he said. "It allows you to plan a little bit with maybe what you need."
 
For Lesley, it's important to properly clarify size.
 
"What do you define as big? Is it just weight or is it length and overall body?" he said. "When we recruit what we want to try and do is stagger a little bit and have a little bit of everything as far as their skillsets. As far as body types, I think a lot of times up front that length matters a lot more than just overall weight."
 
What West Virginia has had in abundance recently is smaller, agile, quicker defensive linemen who were really good at penetrating gaps and disrupting offenses. What it lacked were those big, strong and long space-eaters who could occupy blockers and get a consistent push up the middle.
 
The Mountaineers just didn't have those types of players when Brown got here, and his quest to develop them hit a snag in 2020 when COVID-19 shut down the country. The virus was a major setback for all of the developmental programs out there that needed the time to develop their players.
 
Another snag came last February for WVU when a COVID outbreak within the team shut down the last couple weeks of winter strength training. These were significant disruptions that are only really now getting rectified.
 
Lesley explains.
 
"If you get ready-made players, that's awesome, but the majority of our guys are not going to be. It takes time and investment in the offseason," he noted. "It takes time from the player that is required to do that and then there is the coaching aspect of it. If they have coaches who take new jobs every 14 months it's kind of hard to develop anybody."
 
Lesley has been here the entire time, Jackson has now been in place for 15 months to work with his guys and Mike Joseph's strength and conditioning staff is back to having a full 12-month training cycle to get them bigger, stronger and faster.
 
Consequently, West Virginia has got a group of much bigger defensive linemen who more closely resemble the guys Texas and Oklahoma are running out there on an annual basis. Jordan Jefferson and Sean Martin are two body types West Virginia hasn't really had up front since maybe Don Nehlen was coaching the Mountaineers in the late 1990s when Jalen Thornton's dad, John, was a standout player.
 
Lesley said Jefferson and Martin are big and strong enough to play multiple positions up front, which adds even more value and depth to the defensive roster.
 
Proven seniors Dante Stills and Taijh Alston are now fully-grown men. Redshirt freshman Hammond Russell IV is another big dude. Even the bandits, Lanell Carr and Jared Bartlett, are all grown up.
 
"I think when you see our first group we look the part," Brown admitted. "We've got some size. Jordan Jefferson is a guy now going into his fourth year in the program and he's ready to play at a high level. He did that at the end of last year. He's playing the same position as (consensus All-American) Darius Stills and he can be as good of a player as Darius, but he's doing it a whole different way."
 
That's because Jefferson is a good 20-to-25 pounds heavier and three-to-four inches taller than Darius was. Lesley said the pause button has now been removed from guys like Carr and Martin, whose development was stunted somewhat because of the multiple COVID interruptions.
 
"We were fortunate to have a good season defensively (in 2020) and we had some good pieces, but those pieces in their first and second years … you really just kind of pressed pause on their development," Lesley explained. "The guys coming in their first year you never really pressed start and now that we're back to a normal cycle, you are starting to see it."
 
The net of having a full developmental cycle is much improved defensive line depth with West Virginia possessing solid, up-and-coming young players such as Thornton, Taurus Simmons, Edward Vesterinen, Brayden Dudley and Cincinnati transfer Zeiqui Lawton, a South Charleston resident who has earned consistent praise from Brown throughout the spring.
 
Lawton is probably similar to Darius Stills in terms of body type and athleticism, which gives Lesley and Jackson the variety and versatility they are seeking from their defensive linemen.
 
"There may be a gap in talent, but the quality of your depth is better when you have that full cycle or two cycles. In the environment that we're in now, it's even more challenging than it ever has been before," Lesley concluded.

For sure, but at the bare minimum West Virginia has finally found the beef in some of its big guys up front.
 
You can watch them in person Saturday afternoon when the Mountaineers conclude their spring work inside Milan Puskar Stadium with the annual Gold-Blue Game. The two squads have been equally divided and will be coached by Jackson and running backs coach Chad Scott.
 

 
Kickoff is set for 1 p.m. with television coverage on the Big 12 Now on ESPN+ platform. Andrew Caridi will handle the play-by-play duties, Dale Wolfley will provide analysis and Amanda Mazey will be the on-site reporter.
 
Additional TV coverage will start with a special Mountaineer GameDay Gold-Blue pregame show at noon on the all of the local Nexstar affiliates.
 
The veteran radio announcing crew of Tony Caridi (play-by-play), Dwight Wallace (analysis) and Jed Drenning (sideline) will handle radio coverage on the Mountaineer Sports Network, presented by Learfield.
 
Gates open at noon, and tickets are available for $10 each. A portion of the proceeds from the Gold-Blue Game once again will benefit WVU Medicine Children's. Since 1984, the Mountaineers have donated more than $778,000 to WVU Medicine Children's.