Why So Many High Snaps? Neal Brown Explains Reasoning for Sticking with Brandon Yates

It was a forgettable night for the Mountaineers' starting center.

West Virginia University offensive lineman Brandon Yates. / Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

West Virginia fans were blessed with four years of Zach Frazier, so it's easy to get spoiled by great center play, and really, up until last night against Iowa State, his replacement, Brandon Yates, had played well.

Occasionally you may see a game where the center is just a tad bit off and has a couple of bad snaps, but nothing like what we witnessed with Yates on Saturday who had possibly as many as ten high snaps.

Neal Brown on if the snaps were problematic

"Yates has a little bit of a hand issue but they were a factor – that’s fair. Three of them resulted in negative plays but there was probably eight to 10 in a game."

Even after the first three, four, maybe even five sloppy deliveries to Garrett Greene, it was hard to justify yanking a sixth-year senior out of a big-time game like that for a redshirt freshman in Landen Livingston who has had extremely limited playing time early in his career.

By about the sixth and seventh bad snaps, I was shocked to see Brown and offensive line coach not make a change. It became evident that Yates was having a difficult time and it just felt like one of those poor snaps would come at a really bad time.

Brown's explanation for rolling with Yates

"We did [have thoughts of taking Yates out of the game] and whether we should have or shouldn’t have, that’s probably up for discussion, but Brandon had played so well. He’s our starting center and he’s going to be our starting center this year. Landen’s (Livingston) got a bright future but he (Yates) is clearly our best option right there. Because we’re right here in the middle of season, I didn’t think that was the right move from a confidence standpoint and so that’s why we decided to stick with him."

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