Quick Hits: Strength of Schedule, Injury Update, Bigger Mountaineers and More

West Virginia University football head coach Neal Brown's quick hitters from day one of fall camp

West Virginia University football head coach Neal Brown / Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

The West Virginia University football program held its first practice of fall camp Wednesday morning.

Head coach Neal Brown met with the media following the morning practice session and gave an update on the Mountaineers after day one.

Opening Statement

I'll start with this, I'm fired up about this group. So this is year 22 for me as a coach, year 10 as a head coach, and probably as excited as I've been.

I really feel comfortable with our staff, and it's layered. Everybody can coach, which I think is a good rule. I think that'll help us especially in fall camp, and within our development guys once we get into season.

Our support areas are really strong right now, academic strength conditioning, nutrition, sports psych, athletic training, our medical group. I feel like they were really strong in those support areas.  

I really liked the leadership of this team. If you look at the guys that have been here and grown through our culture, really pleased where that's at.

We're in camp mode through the 21st. That's the first day of school here.

We've actually got more time in this camp than we've had during my time here.

We'll scrimmage twice. We're going to have a really physical camp. With the new rules, the coach the player and the iPads, we're gonna make it more game-like four or five times before we suit up against Penn State.

In camp, really until the 21st, we're preparing for the season and an entirety - all 12 games. Really leaning on preparing for our Big 12 schedule and then after the 21st we'll get into Penn State prep.

Injury update

(Junior running back) CJ Donaldson full participation today. He will be full go all during fall camp. The same for 9sophomore running back) Jahiem White, (redshirt junior) Jaheem Joseph, (senior tight end) Kole Taylor. Both those guys will be full go.  

(Freshman offensive lineman) Kyle Altuner will be out with a lower injury. We looked for him to come back some point midseason. He's not going to miss the year. That's a blow to us. We thought he would be able to compete, and he still may toward the latter part of the season, but he'll miss all of camp and probably looking toward midseason.

(Redshirt freshman defensive lineman) Cory McIntyre's out lower injury that he got hurt in the spring. He'll be back later in the year, but he's going through rehab right now.

(Redshirt freshmen Oryend Fisher is still limited from an injury during bowl prep last year - lower body injury.

(Junior cornerback) Jacoby spells has really done well. He got injured, I think, practice two or three of spring ball. He was a limited participant today, but I feel good about him progressing and being ready.

(Freshman wide receiver) Dom Collins had a little bit of procedure. He’s limited but he’ll be full within a week.

(Redshirt junior linebacker) Jairo Faverus is going to be a medical redshirt. [I] hate it for him. Great guy, [he] was a heavy special teams contributor, but just had several injuries that set him back and the other.

The other one that's taking a medical redshirt is (redshirt sophomore defensive lineman) Moe Hamilton - with some lower leg and some back issues. So those two guys are not on our active roster.

Neal also added he believes both medical redshirts are career ending.

(Redshirt sophomore) Asani (Redwood) was a limited participant and hopefully within the next 10 days or so, he’ll move into a full participant, but really hopeful and feel good about his progression.

Strength of schedule

Schedule is to be determined. Everybody’s whining about our schedule, in hindsight, last year, but if you remember, we played last year we opened up with Penn State, a top 10 team. We played Pitt, who was on a lot of people's preseason top 25, and then Texas Tech came here, and they were in preseason top 25. And so, the scheduled is to be determined.

On paper it was really hard, right? And our league is extremely deep. I will say this about our schedule. I like our bye weeks. The travel, we got two really long trips to Lubbock and to Tucson but the Lubbock trip is at the end of the year. Tucson, is we have bye post, so we're protected a little bit on that. So that helps. So, I don't know, to be determined on the schedule. We just got to take it one at a time, but there's some really good teams on there.

Bigger Mountaineers

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. We just didn’t have the dept 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. And, like you look like a room.

If you look at a room say tight end, Cole 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 Traylen Ray, and even Hudson (Clement), those guys was size and length. We’ve had one Bryce 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 corner than we've been. 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.