Camp Observation: WVU Looks 'Significantly Different' & In a Good Way

West Virginia is starting to catch up in one area of the game.

West Virginia University offensive lineman Wyatt Milum / Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

Skill can only take you so far on the biggest stage of college football. You need to have size, length, and strength to be able to do something significant. And for the first time in the Neal Brown era, the Mountaineers finally have that. Is it exactly where they would like to be? No, but it's starting to look more and more like what a top end of the Big 12 team should look like.

"Our line of scrimmages looks significantly different than we were our first two or three years here - significantly different. That's not knock on anybody who was here," Brown said. "We just didn’t have the depth and we were having to play young players at those before they were really developed from a strength standpoint and a weight standpoint. You know, so that's, that's what I meant on that.

"If you look at a room say tight end, Kole Taylor, sticks out, Jack Sammarco sticks out from just a size standpoint. Look at our receiver room now, with Justin Robinson and Jaden Bray and Traylon Ray, and even Hudson (Clement), those guys was size and length. We’ve had one Bryce (Ford-Wheaton) was here. Sean Ryan had that, but we haven't had just a lot of size and length in that room.

"If you look at get defensive back. Look at our safeties when you go out there. We've got multiple guys that look the part. We're bigger corners than we've had. And then our body style at linebacker changed, we've gone bigger, and we go about five deep there with some big linebackers that are not a only a good size, but they can run."

As I detailed in an article last week, sixteen Mountaineers added at least five pounds of muscle since they were measured this time a year ago. Those players being TE Kole Taylor, DL Hammond Russell IV, OT Wyatt Milum, DE Sean Martin, LB/S Raleigh Collins III, S Aubrey Burks, RB Jaylen Anderson, WR Rodney Gallagher III, OL Nick Krahe, CB Josiah Jackson, TE Treylan Davis, TE Noah Braham, S Anthony Wilson, OL Johnny Williams, DL Zachariah Keith, and TE Will Dixon.

Just looking at the difference in weight on paper is one thing, seeing it up close and in person is another. On our most recent episode of Between The Eers, I asked Christopher Hall, who was at practice, if he could see the difference in size from last year's team.

"It's night and day. Across the board. I'd say if there's an undersized unit right now as a whole, maybe linebacker. But that may be a little too harsh because I'm still in the 90s, let's get those big neck roll, huge pads linebackers. It's not that they're small, they're just not as big as they need to be. But they've gotten a lot bigger in the secondary and especially in the receiver room. That's where you notice a really big difference.

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