MORGANTOWN — WVU football held its final scrimmage of fall camp on Saturday and head coach Neal Brown was glad his Mountaineers were playing each other and not somebody else just yet.
“Two weeks from today we’ll be sitting here postgame and truthfully, after today I’m glad we’ve got it,” a disappointed Brown said. “I wasn’t really fired up about some of it. I thought some individuals really showed up and I thought there were some really disappointing things in it as well.”
WVU hosts Penn State in its season opener in two weeks on August. 31. The team will practice two more times before classes begin next Wednesday, Aug. 21 and then the Mountaineers will get into their normal game preparation schedule on the week of the 25th.
What disappointed Brown the most in Saturday’s scrimmage was that the team took a step back so late into the offseason.
“In the last three practices we had been trending upward and we were just not at our best today,” Brown said. “I could make excuses for them, but I’m not…I can make a bunch of them, but we have got to be better than we were today.
“It wasn’t awful, but the expectations are high and it’s a daily standard and we fell short. Not everybody, but we fell short in a few areas today.”
Special Teams
Special teams was the area where Brown had the most positive things to say following the scrimmage. He praised senior Michael Hayes on kickoff and field goals as well as the punt block unit.
Receiver Hudson Clement has taken the lead in the wide-open battle at kickoff returner.
“If we played today, he’d be our kickoff returner,” Brown said. “He hit a big one today in a kickoff return drill.”
Clement did not return kicks last season. As a team, the Mountaineers returned 19 kickoffs and averaged less than 20 yards.
Brown raved about receiver Preston Fox on punt return.
“I think Preston continues to do really well returning,” Brown said. “I think he’s got a chance to be an all-conference player in that role.”
Fox returned 18 punts for 145 yards last season.
Defense
A strong start turned into a lackluster finish for the WVU defense.
“Defensively we started really good,” Brown said. “I thought we fell off as the scrimmage went, some guys got tired. We played some of those guys a bunch of snaps because we wanted to, especially at the safety position, find out who are the guys that are going to step up.”
Brown said he suspects the dropoff was a combination of tired legs and a loss of morale halfway through.
“I thought defensively we had great energy at the start,” Brown said. “Our energy level dropped when we struggled in one segment of the practice.”
Starting safety Aubrey Burks was deliberately played sparingly as the team wanted to evaluate the rest of the safety group. Anthony Wilson was limited with an injury but is expected to be healthy for Penn State. Transfers Kekoura Tarnue and Jaheem Joseph have made plays, but Brown wants to see more consistency from both of them.
Brown was happy with the defensive line play.
Offense
Starting quarterback Garrett Greene just played two series as backup Nicco Marchiol got a large number of reps with the first-team offense. Like Burks, Greene’s limited playing time was by design.
“He’s played a lot of football, I have a really good idea what he is,” Brown said of his signal-caller. “We didn’t play (left tackle) Wyatt (Milum) as much and I think we only played Aubrey 25 snaps.”
Opposite of the defense, Brown thought the Mountaineers started slow on offense and picked it up as the scrimmage went on.
“Offensively, we got off to a slow start but picked it up later,” Brown said. “The run game got going in the second part, but just not clean enough for a veteran group. We’ve got a bunch of guys that have played a bunch of football.”
Lead running backs CJ Donaldson and Jahiem White did not play a lot, giving an opportunity to backups Jaylen Anderson, Diore Hubbard and Trae’von Dunbar, who all drew praise from Brown.
As he did on punt return, Fox stood out with a pair of big gains.
