MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia has some injury concerns heading into the bye week according to coach Neal Brown, but an important piece to the defense will be added just in the nick of time.
Brown remains uncertain on the status of offensive lineman Josh Sills, who’s missed the last two games with a shoulder injury, but expects an update Tuesday about his availability in practice this week.
Cornerback Dreshun Miller, who was a highly-touted recruit from Eastern Arizona College, hasn’t played this season, and Brown did not seem optimistic about his immediate availability.
“Dreshun is recovering from surgery and we’ll probably know more about his status this season maybe in the next week or so,” Brown said during Monday’s Big 12 coaches teleconference.
Miller walked the sidelines using crutches during the James Madison and N.C. State games.
Linebacker Charlie Benton is practicing, but hasn’t made it into a game yet. He suffered a knee injury during last year’s opener against Tennessee and missed the entire season.
However, the Mountaineers will get linebacker VanDarius Cowan back from a four-game suspension. The suspension was handed down in mid-August due to NCAA-mandated “eligibility issues,” according to WVU.
“His suspension is up and he’ll be eligible to play moving forward,” Brown said of Cowan. “He’ll get heavily evaluated during this bye week and heading into the Texas game.”
Cowan, a former 4-star prospect, was not eligible last season after transferring to WVU from Alabama, but was expected to be a major contributor at a current position of need at “Bandit,” which has been manned by Quondarius Qualls.
“We have to get more out of that position,” defensive coordinator Vic Koenning said last week.
Texas game time announced
The Big 12 announced that WVU’s home game Oct. 5 against No. 11 Texas will kick off at 3:30 p.m. and will be televised on either ABC or ESPN. The network designation will be determined at a later date.
The Mountaineers (3-1, 1-0) are 1-2 against the Longhorns in Morgantown with the lone win coming in 2015. Texas (3-1, 1-0) will also have a bye week prior to the trip to Milan Puskar Stadium. It knocked off Oklahoma State to open conference play last Saturday.
Texas coach Tom Herman gave injury updates of his own, saying star safety Caden Sterns will miss four weeks, including the WVU game, with a ligament injury. Top receiver Collin Johnson is also questionable, with Herman going as far to say playing in the WVU game is “best-case scenario. To say expect is a bit far-reaching.”
The Homecoming matchup is the Stripe the Stadium game. Fans sitting in even-numbered sections, Touchdown Terrace and WVU students seated in the upper level student sections are encouraged to wear gold to the game. Fans sitting in odd-numbered sections and WVU students seated in the lower level student sections are encouraged to wear blue.
The game is sold out, but fans still looking to purchase tickets are reminded to visit stubhub.com for potential availability.
The Mad Hatter returns
Kansas coach Les Miles wouldn’t admit on the coaches teleconference that his kicker Liam Jones had a pulled hamstring against West Virginia last Saturday, but that it did feel “a little tight.”
In other words, Miles went back to his roots as “The Mad Hatter” with a little trickery in the third quarter against WVU.
After a 22-yard field goal, Jones pulled up limp following the extra point, grabbing his left kicking leg the entire way back to the sideline. Out trotted freshman Jacob Borcila to replace Jones on the ensuing kickoff, and Borcila pooched an onside kick to catch the Mountaineers sleeping.
Dante Bonamico went up to make the catch, but was met immediately by Kansas’ Jamahl Horne, who eventually recovered the ball. However, Horne was called for kick-catch interference for not giving Bonamico at least one yard to make the catch.
The home crowd littered the field with boos for a long time after, but following the game, the ruling was generally accepted, even by Miles, that it was the correct call, but he believes changes need to be made.
“The key piece to that was that you needed to give the receiver a yard’s distance, OK, so he’s protected as a receiver,” Miles said. “I understood that to be the rule. I felt like [Horne] would have a very difficult time getting there. He made a great play. I think that college football should look at that opportunity to include the kicking game into some of the most exciting plays in college football, as opposed to penalizing them for those exact plays.”
