MORGANTOWN — Although WVU football finished its fourth practice on fall camp on Saturday, head coach Neal Brown said the real work won’t begin for two more days.
“For all intents and purposes, camp really starts on Monday,” Brown said after the team held an open practice inside Milum Puskar Stadium. “The last day in shells will be Monday and then Tuesday and Wednesday will be full pads. We’ll start doing some tackling and that’s when we’ll really start separating out.”
The Mountaineers have yet to have a full-contact practice, going with just helmets for the first two and shells in the next. That will change this week when WVU puts on full pads and begins tackling to the ground.
“We’re really put a premium on physicality,” Brown said. “We practice much more physically and we tackled every day we were legally able to tackle during the spring. We’re going to use a lot of those opportunities in fall camp and be intentional about being physical and tackling to the ground.”
Having physical practices is a balancing act as the team needs to be rough enough to prepare for the season, but not so rough to risk serious injuries. Brown said last year the team was not as deep so they did not practice as physically as they will this fall.
“Everyone in the country has to deal with that,” Brown said. “We’re probably going to err on the side of being more physical. We didn’t do that a year ago and I think it hurt us early in the year. We didn’t tackle very well against Pitt and our tacking against Kansas was atrocious. We didn’t have a really deep team last year so we probably weren’t as physical during camp and it showed in our play.”
While “real” camp starts on Monday, decisions on the depth chart and playing time are still a couple of weeks away.
“We try to give everybody two scrimmages, so that’ll be two weeks from (Saturday),” Brown explained. “There are several jobs that are open, there are a lot of back-up jobs, a lot of jobs on special teams that are open and a lot of travel spots. Most of those (decisions) will be made that Sunday or Monday after the second scrimmage.”
Fantastic Freshmen
Even though fall camp is still just getting underway, there have been a couple of true freshmen who have caught Brown’s eye early on and are making strong cases to get plenty of early playing time. Those are running back Jahiem White, who enrolled early and impressed in the spring, and receiver Rodney Gallagher, the team’s top-rated recruit who got to campus for summer OTAs.
“Jahiem really came on in the last two weeks of spring practice,” Brown said. “He plays in a different gear than our other running backs…he’s quicker and his running style is much different than the other guys we have in the backfield.”
White made a great first impression on WVU fans when he broke off a 53-yard touchdown run in the team’s spring game in April.
“I felt coming out the spring that he would play and he hasn’t done anything but help himself over the summer and through our first four practices,” Brown said.
Gallagher joined the team later but is making a similar impression on Brown through four fall practices.
“Rodney’s put on probably 12 or 14 pounds since he’s been here, which has given him a chance to compete,” Brown said. “And he’s blocked a lot better than I probably anticipated because he’s never had to. He’s been more physical and he’s made a couple of really contested catches over the middle.”
NFL Hall of Fame
The nine members of the 2023 NFL Hall of Fame class were inducted Saturday, including a couple who Brown specifically wants to congratulate, former Mountaineer Chuck Howley and former Troy standout DeMarcus Ware.
“I want to make sure we recognize Chuck Howley, one of the best linebackers to ever play in the NFL,” Brown said. “Big congrats.”
Howley, 87, was a five-time All-Pro linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys and is the only player to ever win Super Bowl MVP as a member of the losing team.
“Probably the greatest player in Troy’s history gets his gold jacket too in DeMarcus Ware,” Brown continued. “I’m thinking about both of those families today, what a tremendous honor.”
After playing at Troy, Brown’s previous job before WVU, Ware went on to rack up 138.5 sacks in his NFL career with Dallas and Denver.
