Photo by: WVU Athletic Communications
Mountaineers Cross Off Practice No. 14 on Friday Morning
August 16, 2024 03:51 PM | Football, Blog
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Friday's work on the Steve Antoline Family Practice Field included lots of situational football, particularly toward the end of practice.
A handful of 1891 Club Elite Mountaineer members were on hand to take in today's scrimmage, as was men's basketball coach Darian DeVries.
Coleman Barnes, senior associate athletics director and Mountaineer football's chief of staff, said between 30 or 40 members will be in town taking in tomorrow afternoon's closed scrimmage inside Milan Puskar Stadium.
The team practiced in helmets and shells this morning under overcast skies and cool temperatures.
Today's practice concluded with a long field goal challenge between Michael Hayes and super-toe sophomore RJ Kocan, who got his final kick to sail over the crossbar from 60 yards out.
Kocan, a West Islip, New York resident, is in a battle with Hayes, last year's starter, for the placekicking duties.
During the final two team periods, which consisted of mostly third- and fourth-down situational football, the first group on defense performed well and the second offensive group, led by a couple of long CJ Donaldson runs, responded.
TJ Crandall, a Colorado State transfer, came up with an interception toward the end of teamwork.
Overall, coach Neal Brown labeled today's practice adequate.
"We worked kind of in the fringe area on third down and played the fourth down wherever it went and that was good. It was really good defensively working some of our sub packages getting in and out of games," he said.
"We worked the two-minute, end of game, which I thought was our best execution defensively with our first group. We played some dime, which we just installed, and I thought that was by far our best execution of fall camp," Brown noted.
"Then, the second offensive group did a nice job, so it was kind of split at the end of practice," he said.
Being practice No. 14 with Saturday's scrimmage looming, Brown thought the overall energy today was not where he would have liked it.
"We're kind of hitting that part of camp where they've got to fight through," he explained. "Tomorrow is a big deal because I think about it like when you are in school.
"We are about to start the fall semester and in college you have attendance, or in-class participation and maybe some homework. Everything counts, but those are graded at a lower percentage than the exams. You usually have three or four exams during the course of the semester, and those are weighted more heavily," he said. "That's the way we think about scrimmages is everything's graded, but the scrimmages are weighted more heavily, so we've got to be ready to go tomorrow."
It was encouraging seeing the defense play with energy, enthusiasm and emotion, which is going to be a necessity for the Mountaineers this season with the schedule they are facing.
"If you have a good football team, it shouldn't be completely one-sided., and we had give-and-take today," Brown said. "(Senior spur) Tyrin Bradley is kind of our energizer (on defense). He's the guy who always plays with an edge, and he was ready to go from the start, and they really followed his lead from an energy standpoint."
An aspect of practice that begins to come into play is peaking at the appropriate time ahead of a challenging season opener against the No. 8-ranked team in the country.
Brown said it's still too early yet to be concerned about that.
"This is a practice sport, and we need reps," he said. "The hard thing in college football is you are only playing against yourself, so you don't really know in any of your phases if you are really good or if you are struggling on the other side of it.
"That's what's always hard to anticipate," he added. "Now the science tells you from a physical standpoint when you should potentially peak, and we used a bunch of indicators on that. From a chemistry standpoint, timing and all those things, is you work toward that and it's really about gaining confidence through repetitions."
With Brown adopting more of an NFL model for preseason camp, Saturday's scrimmage will be treated like a second preseason game, which means many of the front-line players will be getting a bigger workload than the initial scrimmage last Saturday."
Brown said the team will have Sunday off as a recovery day and then Monday's and Tuesday's practices will resemble typical in-season Tuesday-Wednesday practices.
The team will have a mock game on Wednesday and afterward some developmental players will get some scrimmage work.
On Thursday, the Mountaineers will turn their sole attention to Penn State game planning.
Following today's practice, quarterbacks coach Tyler Allen and players Garnett Hollis Jr. and Brandon Yates spent some time with the media. Those interviews will be posted on WVUsports.com and West Virginia's official YouTube channel WVUsports later this afternoon.
A handful of 1891 Club Elite Mountaineer members were on hand to take in today's scrimmage, as was men's basketball coach Darian DeVries.
Coleman Barnes, senior associate athletics director and Mountaineer football's chief of staff, said between 30 or 40 members will be in town taking in tomorrow afternoon's closed scrimmage inside Milan Puskar Stadium.
The team practiced in helmets and shells this morning under overcast skies and cool temperatures.
Today's practice concluded with a long field goal challenge between Michael Hayes and super-toe sophomore RJ Kocan, who got his final kick to sail over the crossbar from 60 yards out.
Kocan, a West Islip, New York resident, is in a battle with Hayes, last year's starter, for the placekicking duties.
During the final two team periods, which consisted of mostly third- and fourth-down situational football, the first group on defense performed well and the second offensive group, led by a couple of long CJ Donaldson runs, responded.
TJ Crandall, a Colorado State transfer, came up with an interception toward the end of teamwork.
Overall, coach Neal Brown labeled today's practice adequate.
"We worked kind of in the fringe area on third down and played the fourth down wherever it went and that was good. It was really good defensively working some of our sub packages getting in and out of games," he said.
"We worked the two-minute, end of game, which I thought was our best execution defensively with our first group. We played some dime, which we just installed, and I thought that was by far our best execution of fall camp," Brown noted.
"Then, the second offensive group did a nice job, so it was kind of split at the end of practice," he said.
Being practice No. 14 with Saturday's scrimmage looming, Brown thought the overall energy today was not where he would have liked it.
"We're kind of hitting that part of camp where they've got to fight through," he explained. "Tomorrow is a big deal because I think about it like when you are in school.
"We are about to start the fall semester and in college you have attendance, or in-class participation and maybe some homework. Everything counts, but those are graded at a lower percentage than the exams. You usually have three or four exams during the course of the semester, and those are weighted more heavily," he said. "That's the way we think about scrimmages is everything's graded, but the scrimmages are weighted more heavily, so we've got to be ready to go tomorrow."
It was encouraging seeing the defense play with energy, enthusiasm and emotion, which is going to be a necessity for the Mountaineers this season with the schedule they are facing.
"If you have a good football team, it shouldn't be completely one-sided., and we had give-and-take today," Brown said. "(Senior spur) Tyrin Bradley is kind of our energizer (on defense). He's the guy who always plays with an edge, and he was ready to go from the start, and they really followed his lead from an energy standpoint."
An aspect of practice that begins to come into play is peaking at the appropriate time ahead of a challenging season opener against the No. 8-ranked team in the country.
Brown said it's still too early yet to be concerned about that.
"This is a practice sport, and we need reps," he said. "The hard thing in college football is you are only playing against yourself, so you don't really know in any of your phases if you are really good or if you are struggling on the other side of it.
"That's what's always hard to anticipate," he added. "Now the science tells you from a physical standpoint when you should potentially peak, and we used a bunch of indicators on that. From a chemistry standpoint, timing and all those things, is you work toward that and it's really about gaining confidence through repetitions."
With Brown adopting more of an NFL model for preseason camp, Saturday's scrimmage will be treated like a second preseason game, which means many of the front-line players will be getting a bigger workload than the initial scrimmage last Saturday."
Brown said the team will have Sunday off as a recovery day and then Monday's and Tuesday's practices will resemble typical in-season Tuesday-Wednesday practices.
The team will have a mock game on Wednesday and afterward some developmental players will get some scrimmage work.
On Thursday, the Mountaineers will turn their sole attention to Penn State game planning.
Following today's practice, quarterbacks coach Tyler Allen and players Garnett Hollis Jr. and Brandon Yates spent some time with the media. Those interviews will be posted on WVUsports.com and West Virginia's official YouTube channel WVUsports later this afternoon.
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