MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — For the second consecutive day of the three-week summer practices, University football focused solely on offense.
It’s not that the Hawks don’t want to start working on their defense — after all, they’ll have 7-on-7s where they’ll need to play quite a bit of it. However, they currently lack the necessary staffing as former defensive coordinator Eric Snyder resigned following last season.
“We lose a tremendous person in Eric,” coach John Kelley said. “I didn’t have to worry about anything with him here. I admire him more than anything in the world, and I love him like a son. He’s one of the best teachers in the building – the only that I’m disappointed with is that he was basically the heir apparent for taking over this job when I’m finally done, but that wouldn’t be my call to make anyway.
“It’s just part of this job. It’s happened before. I’ve done it for 33 years, and most people get out way before me. They get their priorities straight and realize. He sat me down and explained to me that he wanted to have more of a commitment to his family and spend more time with him. He’s got his priorities right.”
With the future of the defense in question, Kelley chose to lay off of installing and practicing defensive schemes for the time being. While he isn’t quite panicking, he understands that it could delay the development of his defensive unit.
“Right now, we’d probably start putting some coverages in, but I’m not worried about it at this point,” he said. “Running around in T-shirts and shorts, there isn’t a whole lot of defense you can do besides install. We’ll eventually get to some drills and put in some basic coverages for 7-on-7 games; time is of the essence, but it’s very difficult right now.”
Junior Max Robertson thinks it’s a struggle, but trusts the coaches they have now.”
“I have a lot of faith in coach Kelley’s ability to bring something together that’s going to work,” he said. “There’s not as many seasoned players this year that can help adjust to whatever defense comes out of this, but I think whatever we have will work and be efficient.”
The search is on for a replacement since Snyder announced his decision to step down, but the position has to be filled by an employee within the school district, and finding one that has the desire and knowledge to fill a defensive coordinator position, as well as one who fits what Kelley wants in an assistant, is a tough challenge.
“It’s very difficult — so people know what we’re up against, you can’t just get someone and create a teaching job for them,” he said. “There has to be a position open and it has to be posted and open for everyone that applies. If they happen to be a good enough teacher and also a good defensive coordinator, that’s great. But its almost impossible to match that up.
“I’ve done it before and we’ll go by committee if we have to. The white flag isn’t going up yet and we’re not going to be unprepared.”
For the time being, Robertson hopes to help make up for the struggles on the defensive side of the ball by laying a strong foundation of upperclassmen leadership.
“I think that it’s important this time of year for our upperclassmen to create some sort of base where everyone feels accepted and respected,” he said. “We need to make this team feel like they can come together and help lead the younger kids. I feel like that’s something we’ve been doing a good job of, and this feels like a healthy environment for the younger kids. If we can keep up what we’ve been doing to get there, we’ll have a very good defense.”
