MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Preseason football camp begins Wednesday morning in preparation for West Virginia's season opener at Penn State on Saturday, Sept. 2.
The Nittany Lions, who have 16 starters and 44 lettermen returning from last year's 11-2 team that routed Utah in the Rose Bowl, are expected to be ranked in the preseason top 10 when the AP poll comes out on Aug. 14.
If so, that means West Virginia will be opening in a top-10-ranked opponents' home stadium for the first time since 1982 when the Mountaineers played at ninth-ranked Oklahoma.
WVU kicked off the 1994 season against fourth-ranked Nebraska in Giants Stadium and greeted top-ranked Ohio State in Morgantown to begin the 1998 campaign. More recently, West Virginia lifted the lid on 2014 with a game against second-ranked Alabama in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, so you get the idea of what the team is up against in early September. Neal Brown begins his fifth season at WVU in 2023.
"Penn State is really good, no matter when we play them, but the fact that you open up with them brings a sense of urgency to your preparation," Coach Neal Brown said earlier this summer.
Brown, beginning his fifth season at West Virginia, will have 13 starters and 39 lettermen returning from last year's 5-7 team that won two of its last three games against Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
Brown said his team is going to have to do a much better job this season of taking care of the football on offense, while getting more takeaways on defense. The Mountaineers ranked 120th out of 131 teams in turnover margin in 2022.
"Offensively, the No. 1 thing is we've got to take care of the football," he said. "The second thing is we've got to be more efficient on third down, especially third and medium, and we've got to score touchdowns in the red zone. We did a really nice job of that two years ago, but not as much last year. The third thing is we've got to make explosive plays. We must be a more explosive team than we have been the last couple of years."
West Virginia will have its offensive line returning intact from the end of last season. The five guys who started the regular season finale at Oklahoma State – Doug Nester, Tomas Rimac, Zach Frazier, Wyatt Milum and Ja'Quay Hubbard – should be on the field when the Mountaineers play Penn State, although there could be some rearranging. Frazier, a preseason All-America center, will anchor a unit that is considered one of the most experienced in the country with 132 combined starts returning.
"If that's not the most in the country, it's got to be close," Brown said.
Four of West Virginia's top five rushers return, including stellar freshman CJ Donaldson Jr. and athletic junior quarterback Garrett Greene, who will battle touted freshman Nicco Marchiol for the starting job this fall. Both give WVU athleticism at the quarterback position it hasn't had since either 2016 when Skyler Howard led the Mountaineers to a 10-win season, or Will Grier in 2018.
The wide receiver corps will be completely retooled with Cortez Braham and Jeremiah Aaron boasting the most experience, which means several transfers will have to step in and produce immediately. Among those are NC State's Devin Carter, Kent State's Ja'Shaun Poke, Angelo State's Noah Massey and Marshall's E.J. Horton. Touted freshman Rodney Gallagher III, from nearby Uniontown, Pennsylvania, is another possibility.
That group also got a big boost last winter when LSU tight end Kole Taylor joined the program and took part in spring drills. In all, West Virginia will have seven tight ends on its roster at the start of preseason camp.
Chad Scott, on Brown's staff for four seasons as running backs coach, has been promoted to offensive coordinator, although Brown indicated earlier this month that he will resume play calling duties this season.
The defensive side of the ball is where West Virginia is going to have to make the biggest improvement in 2023. WVU took a step backward in 2022 after fourth-year coordinator Jordan Lesley fielded stingy units in 2020 and 2021.
"Our defensive performance last year was not good enough and then you start examining why?" Brown said. "Well, there were some personnel issues. Some of it was evaluation and some of it was our collective wasn't yet established and we lost some starters, but as coaches we had to ask ourselves, 'What can we do better that we can control right now?' I think simplification, from a teaching standpoint, was one thing we could do."
Last year's defense finished 128th in turnovers gained, 126th in interceptions, 114th in scoring and 109th in passing yards allowed, primarily because of youth and inexperience in the secondary. This year, the back end will possess a lot more moxie with second- and third-leading tacklers Aubrey Burks and Marcis Floyd returning at the safety positions.
Inside linebacker Lee Kpogba, the team's top tackler in 2022, returns, as does 6-foot-5, 291-pound junior Sean Martin, both of whom Brown believes have all-conference-type talent. Of the 19 defensive linemen listed on this year's roster, six began their collegiate careers at other schools, including Penn State transfer Fatorma Mulbah. Brown is hopeful junior Edward Vesterinen, sophomore Hammond Russell IV and former Georgia Tech transfer Mike Lockhart can make big jumps this season.
Junior bandit Jared Bartlett and touted true freshman edge rusher James Heard Jr. are two other athletic defenders to keep an eye on.
"Defensively, takeaways are No. 1," Brown said. "We've got to decrease the number of explosive plays and then we've got to be able to get off the field, especially in third and long situations.
"We're going to be one of the most improved defensive units in the Big 12, if not the country," Brown predicted.
Sophomore punter Oliver Straw earned Freshman All-America honors in 2022 after averaging 42.3 yards per punt and will be paired with junior long snapper Austin Brinkman to headline the Mountaineer special teams unit. Georgia State transfer Michael Hayes will battle sophomore Danny King for the placekicking duties, and Poke, who averaged 27.4 yards per kickoff return last year at Kent State, looks to bolster a return unit that ranked 102nd in the country last year.
Gallagher could also be a factor in the return game.
A total of 110 players are expected to be on the field Wednesday morning when practice begins. Brown is scheduled to be available afterward for a post-practice update.
The remaining schedule for this week includes coordinators Scott and Lesley on Thursday, and select players following Friday's practice leading into Saturday's Fan Day, which will take place on the stadium concourse from 9:30 until 11 a.m. Fans are invited to stick around to watch practice and then afterward, Brown will wrap up week one with more post-practice remarks.
