MORGANTOWN — West Virginia football will be holding open walk-on tryouts in its indoor practice facility at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning. Open tryouts are good for filling out the bottom of a team’s roster, but very rarely do they produce any actual on-field contributors.
The exception to that rule is WVU cornerback Malachi Ruffin, who went to an open tryout in 2018 and made the team as a walk-on. Fast-forward five years and Ruffin is now on scholarship and competing to earn a starting role this season.
Ruffin has advice for those participating in next week’s tryout.
“Go in there with confidence,” Ruffin said after the team’s practice Friday morning. “It’s something I wish I did…Just go in there with confidence and don’t worry about anybody else. Just worry about yourself and just do what you can to the best of your ability.”
Ruffin is as confident as he’s ever been this fall camp after playing in all 12 games last season and making the first five starts of his career. He said the key to building confidence is prevailing through adversity.
“Just knowing what you’re good at and using it to your strength,” Ruffin said. “Adversity is going to happen and that’s where your confidence really can build. When you know that bad things happen, how do you react to them? I experienced a lot of adversity during my time here and even in high school, I just have to put aside the negatives that happened and keep moving forward.”
Ruffin is not the only player feeling confident as the Mountaineers near the end of fall camp later this week. Redshirt-junior offensive lineman Ja’Quay Hubbard said his confidence is higher than ever as he enters his fourth season at WVU.
“Confidence is everything and I think my confidence is the highest it’s been,” Hubbard said. “That’s how it’s supposed to be, it’s the oldest I’ve been, the most experienced I’ve been and so my confidence is at its highest.”
Hubbard is battling classmate Brandon Yates to be WVU’s starting right guard this season after starting 11 games in 2022.
“To be successful, you have to be confident,” he said. “Confidence is everything. With confidence, you can anticipate and when you can anticipate, you can just play so much faster, especially at offensive line.”
The entire running back room is also experiencing a surge of confidence this fall after a successful 2022 season.
“Last year boosted my confidence a lot,” junior running back Justin Johnson said. “It was really my first real action so now I kind of know what I’m looking for, know what I’m doing a little bit. I consider myself a veteran and the game slowed down a lot for me last year.”
Johnson played in all 12 games last season, setting career highs in yards (430) and touchdowns (three). Fellow running backs CJ Donaldson (534 yards, eight touchdowns) and Jaylen Anderson (282 yards, two touchdowns) also found success last season and thus the entire running back room is feeling good this fall.
“I’d definitely say we’re a confident group,” Johnson said. “Everyone is confident that they’re going to succeed this year especially because of last year, Jaylen had a big game against Oklahoma State, CJ had a big season and I had a big season.”
The Mountaineers will need all the confidence they can must when WVU opens the season with a challenging game at Penn State in two weeks (NBC, 7 p.m.).
“The more confidence that you have, the faster you’re going to play, the better you’re going to play, the better you’re going to feel,” Johnson said.
