MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Lots of situational and special teams work was on the menu during this morning's scrimmage inside the stadium.
 
Today's scrimmage went a little long, causing coach Neal Brown to push back his post-practice remarks about a half hour to 1:30 p.m. this afternoon. Brown said the entire roster got scrimmage reps today and about half of the scrimmage was live tackling and the other half was tag. It was the Mountaineers' first work inside the stadium this fall.
 
"We really took a hard look at our young guys who are athletic enough to play on special teams," he said.
 
Offensively, the fourth-year coach mentioned the work put forth by running backs Tony Mathis Jr., Jaylen Anderson and CJ Donaldson, a converted tight end who has performed well through the first week and a half of camp.
 
A 6-foot-2, 240-pound true freshman from Gulliver Prep in Miami, Donaldson played slot receiver and running back in high school and really emerged during his senior season.
 
"A great pickup for us," Brown said.
 
The offensive line had some bright moments this morning, and Brown characterized the wide receiver play as "okay." He said he has very high expectations for that group this season. Among them, Brown singled out sophomore Reese Smith's performance today.
 
"He's been as consistent as anybody throughout fall camp," Brown said of the Danville, Kentucky, resident. "He's playing faster, and he made a couple of really nice plays down the field."
 
The coach was reluctant to talk about the quarterbacks until he reviews the practice tape.
 
"It's not fair to them," he said.
 
Brown did say the plan was to give each quarterback an equal number of drives, although the total plays might be skewed a little bit based on how the offense performed during their drives. Overall, Brown commended the first and second offensive groups for their performance during the third-down period, two-minute, end-of-game situations and one successful goal line series.
 
Defensively, Penn State transfer Lance Dixon continues to perform well at outside linebacker. Brown calls the last four or five practices his "best stretch" as a Mountaineer.
 
Inside linebacker Lee Kpogba was praised for his ability to get the defense lined up and communicating calls to the other players, and he thought Dante Stills put a lot of pressure on the quarterback, estimating the senior would have likely had two or three sacks if he was allowed to hit the quarterbacks.
 
In the secondary, Brown mentioned Charles Woods and Murray State transfer Marcis Floyd, as well as junior college transfer Hershey McLaurin's physicality.
 
"I thought he showed up and tackled well," Brown said.
 
Others who caught Brown's eye on defense were the two transfer corners, Wesley McCormick and Rashad Ajayi.
 
"Defensively, it's about figuring out who you are going to play and offensively, what is our depth going to look like?" he explained. "How many receivers are you going to play in the game? How many running backs are you going to play? How many tight ends? What's your offensive line rotation look like?
 
"We've got a pretty good idea who the main pieces are who are going to play, now we need to get reps," he added.
 
No on-field activities are planned for Friday. The team will practice on Saturday morning following Fan Day, which is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. up on the stadium concourse. Fans are encourage to remain and watch Saturday's workout inside the stadium.
 
Select players will be made available to the media afterward.
 
The Mountaineers will wrap up the week with a closed practice on Sunday.
 


Briefly:
 
* Brown said of particular interest to him was watching the special teams competition drills with the athletic guys they did this morning.
 
* The coach said he likes the offensive line's communication and ability to get on the right people but they've got to sustain their pass protection for a little bit longer.
 
* Left guard James Gmiter was held out of today's scrimmage, but Brown said he should be good to go by early next week.
 
* Brown said following the second scrimmage is when the team will transition from camp mode to game preparation mode.
 
"It's hard to play a really good team early," he explained. "The good thing is they are playing their first game, too. We did not perform well in that Maryland game last year and that's something we've really studied how we did fall camp.
 
"Our calendar is different, how we practice is different, how long we go … when we get the kids out of here in the evenings to how many off days. It's almost a 180 this year with the goal of being as good as we can possibly be on Thursday night in Pittsburgh. You're not going to know how it pays off until we play.
 
"Whatever we did last year leading into that game wasn't good enough," he concluded.