MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — With Vic Koenning’s departure as WVU’s defensive coordinator in late July following an investigation into alleged improper language, head coach Neal Brown needed to make a decision on what to do.
To Brown, especially being this close to the season, the best result was to look in house, putting Jordan Lesley and Jahmile Addae in charge of each half of the defense, respectively. While neither were given a defensive coordinator title, Lesley will handle the “front” of the defense — defensive line and linebackers, while Addae will work with the “back” — cornerbacks and safeties.
“Jahmile and Jordan are both on the lead over there and they have been working together for the last few weeks,” Brown said. “They will continue to work together. Last year, Jordan called the front a lot and we move our front a lot. They have to be on the same page and they will. That is what the week of planning will be about, making sure our front and coverages match. When we get into some true 11-on-11 scrimmage-type situations, we are going to work through a couple of different scenarios. As we get closer to a game week, a couple weeks out, we will let you know where we are at.”
Four of the five assistant coaches on the defensive staff have coordinator experience, including Jeff Casteel, who was promoted to outside linebackers coach from an analyst. Casteel was WVU’s defensive coordinator from 2002-11 before stops at Arizona and Nevada. Jeff Koonz was the co-coordinator at Cincinnati in 2016, Dontae Wright was the co-coordinator at Tennessee Tech in 2017 and Lesley was the coordinator at Kilgore College, Northwest Mississippi Community College and East Mississippi Community College from 2011-15.
As far as schematics, Brown doesn’t believe much will change despite Koenning’s departure.
“Schematically, how we called everything, the terminology, that is all the same,” he said. “We haven’t changed anyone’s position. “We want to be multiple. I think we have the personnel to be maybe more multiple than we were a year ago. We have flexibility with Bryce Brand, VanDarius Cowan, Jared Bartlett, guys that can play on the line of scrimmage and at linebacker. Coverage wise, we are going to have the ability at safety to be more involved in our coverage than we were a year ago.”
Alston out
Defensive end Taijh Alston will miss all of fall camp and about half of the regular season, though the injury was not disclosed. Alston missed all but two games last year after he suffered a season-ending knee injury during the second game against Missouri.
In Alston’s absence a year ago, Jeffery Pooler stepped up and performed well, especially toward the end of the year. Pooler will be relied on again to take hold of one of the defensive end spots.
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