MORGANTOWN — It wasn’t all that long ago that an injury to an offensive lineman would have WVU head coach Neal Brown holding his breath.
“There’s been times in my career when I’m like ‘uh oh’ and you’ve really got to think about how you’re going to call the game,’ Brown admitted.
However, when two starting linemen went down during the Mountaineers’ 41-28 win over UCF on Saturday, he didn’t blink.
Reserve linemen Nick Malone and Ja’Quay Hubbard were both pressed into service in Orlando, replacing starters Doug Nester and Brandon Yates and WVU’s offense didn’t miss a beat.
“You don’t blink when they go in,” Brown said. “They’ve played a lot of football…Malone and Ja’Quay — who are, on paper, our sixth and seventh (linemen) — they’ve played a lot of football.”
Both Malone and Hubbard have started games this season and combine to have played in nearly 50 career games. Hubbard stepped in at right guard when starter Tomas Rimac missed two games and Malone made his first career start two weeks ago against Oklahoma State.
On Saturday, Hubbard came in for Yates at right guard and Malone slotted in at right tackle for Mester.
Even with the entire right side of its offensive line replaced, WVU’s offense put up a season-best 41 points against FBS competition. The Mountaineers ran for 286 yards, averaged 5.7 yards per carry and only had two negative plays in the entire contest.
“That just shows that anyone on our O-line can step up and play,” left tackle Wyatt Milum said. “That shows the depth that we have.”
It also shows how far the offensive line has come as a unit in recent years. WVU used a lot of different offensive line combinations during Brown’s early tenure in 2019 and 2020, but mainstays like Nester, Milum and all-American center Zach Frazer have given the unit a strong foundation to build around.
“Between Doug, Zach and Wyatt, those guys, because they’re great players, because they’ve good people and because they’re our hardest workers, they really influence that,” Brown said. “Our O-line is our hardest working group.”
It’s not just the starters who have flourished either. The success Hubbard and Malone had on Saturday, and the rest of this season, shows the unit’s depth as well.
“It’s really just the next man up,” Milum said. “Malone stepped in and he did a really good job (Saturday). We’ve got depth on the O-line.”
Brown has maintained all season that Frazier, Nester and Milum are all-conference caliber players, but the next four, Yates, Rimac, Hubbard and Malone, have shown that they are not too far behind them.
“We’ve been a group that even when bad things happen, we’ve always responded,” Brown said. “We’ve been able to bounce back when bad things happen. We played two backup linemen for the majority of the game…but the group is really resilient.”
