MORGANTOWN — West Virginia’s secondary has both a new man in charge and a new look heading into 2024.
Co-defensive coordinator ShaDon Brown has taken over coaching duties for the entire secondary after just handling the cornerbacks the last three years. He has six new transfer players in that secondary room, including a pair of late additions who just joined the team this summer.
Transfers TJ Crandall (Colorado State), Ayden Garnes (Duquesne), Garnett Hollis (Northwestern) and Jaheem Joseph (Northwestern) were all in town for spring camp but new additions Dontez Fagan (Charlotte) and Kekoura Tarnue (Jacksonville State) had to play catch-up this summer.
“I’d love to have them all here in the spring, but at the end of the day, we do so much in the summer,” Brown said. “We have 16 OTA practices … we can’t go against each other, but we’re installing, putting in techniques and going over everything they’ll need to know. If we didn’t have the OTAs, it’d be really hard for a player coming in over the summer to be able to integrate and play live reps in fall camp and execute at a high level.”
Tarnue and Fagan are both seniors and Brown said between their experience and their summer work, he’s comfortable with both playing this fall.
“The game experience is invaluable,” Brown said. “The thing that’s different between a transfer and a freshman is just their overall play strength. Their ability to play down the field against a bigger, stronger wide receiver.”
Fagan, a cornerback, played one year at Charlotte after spending four years at the JUCO level. He made nine starts last year, with an interception, four pass breakups and 21 tackles.
“He’s a strong, built kid,” Brown said. “He can run and plays the ball down the field really well. He can play bump-and-run probably a little bit better than he can play off-coverage right now.”
Tarune also spent just one season at his previous stop, Jacksonville State, where he started eight games and finished with 48 tackles and a team-high three interceptions. He primarily played cornerback with the Gamecocks but will move to safety full-time with WVU.
“He looks like a safety when he walks in,” Brown said. “His deficiencies that we’re working on are just playing the ball in the deep part of the field.”
The only returners from last year’s starting lineup are safeties Aubrey Burks and Anthony Wilson. Burks, the leader of the group, said quickly building chemistry with the newcomers was one of his top priorities this summer.
“We knew that we were going to have almost a new secondary,” Burks said. “So during the summer, we were going out bowling and small things like that. In our position meetings, we go around and kind of just say something about our life. … If I know something personal about my teammate, when we go out on the field, I’ll have his back because I know what he’s going through. Then if he knows something about me, he’s going to play hard and we’re going to play hard for each other.”
“Obviously, when you get on the field you’ve got to talk and communicate, but you don’t want to wait until fall camp to try and do that. You want to do that way back in the summer so when we get to fall camp, it feels like it’s nothing new.”
Burks himself is trying something new this spring, moving closer to the line of scrimmage to play spear rather than playing deep at cat safety like he has been.
“He’s got a knack for being slippery — I don’t know what you’d call it,” Brown said of Burks. “He slips and slides and dips underneath blocks and he’s what you’d call a savvy football player.”
With Burks trying out spear, Tarnue has been filling in at cat safety. Wilson and Joseph have played free safety while Hollis, Garnes, Fagan and Crandall have manned the two outside cornerback spots.
Brown said his main purpose early in fall camp is figuring out which combination of players in those five spots gives the Mountaineers their best chance of success.
“We’ve got a lot of talent, but right now we’re trying to find the best five guys to go out there regardless of positions,” he said. “We’re mixing and matching a little bit and playing guys at multiple spots.”
West Virginia continues its fall camp with practice six of 15 on Tuesday. The Mountaineers will practice every day this week except Thursday.
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