MORGANTOWN — The second week of fall camp is shaping up to be an important one for West Virginia football.
“This week is a big prove-it week,” head coach Neal Brown said Monday. “This is the hardest week that we’ll have this season. This is the most-physical week we’ll have this season.”
Sandwiched in between the team’s two fall scrimmages, Brown said this week will be when players have the chance to prove themselves heading into the 2024 season.
“Who can we count on?” Brown asked. “Who are the newcomers that are going to play? Who are the guys that are stepping up from a backup or a special teams guy? Can we count on them? They’ll prove it this week.”
Physicality has been the main focus of WVU’s last two offseasons. The increased physicality includes things like tackling to the ground on defense and trying to break those tackles on offense. Those things, of course, increase the risk of injury in camp, but the team believes it’s worth it.
“It’s a dangerous sport,” running back CJ Donaldson said. “We choose to play it. There’s not really a safe way, you just have to practice those things.
“Coach (Chad) Scott always says to play with game-like behavior. We’re treating each day like a game.”
The team will play their second, and final, scrimmage of the fall on Saturday. At that point, Brown said the coaches will have made final decisions on which players are going to be on the two-deep depth chart and expected to contribute and which players will be in the developmental program.
“Just like the NFL teams are cutting their roster, we’re not cutting anybody, but we’re building up who’s going to play,” Brown said. “By the time we get to Wednesday the 21st (the end of camp), there’s not a whole lot of gray area.”
Brown likes to say the Mountaineers aren’t easing into their season. Five of the team’s first eight opponents are ranked in the preseason Top 25. That includes No. 8 Penn State in week one.
“You’ve got to do a really good job of creating pressure situations within practice,” Brown said. “We had a nice, cool day (Monday). I wish it was 95 (degrees). I wish we could make it as hard as possible because that’s when the leadership really shows up.”
The Mountaineers also play No. 22 Kansas, No. 17 Oklahoma State, No. 18 Kansas State and No. 21 Arizona.
“Everybody in the country is going through the same thing,” Brown said. “How can we do it better than the people we’ve got to play? That’s the question.”
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