Quick Hits: Progress Report on Secondary & Receivers, Gallagher's Reps + More

WVU head coach meets with the media to provide another fall camp update.

Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

Wednesday afternoon, the West Virginia Mountaineers held a non-padded practice which was open for the media to attend. Shortly after, head coach Neal Brown took some questions to give the latest update on how things are going during fall camp.

Ability to defend the pass

“We have more able bodies and we’re more athletic. I’ve been really pleased with our two corners that are running with the ones right now. Ayden Garnes, just a really high-level football player. He’s a little thin, but man, he’s competitive. He’s strong for his size. He can run. Really smart. He makes a lot of really good football plays. And then Garnett Hollis (Jr.) is a guy that’s one of the bigger kids we’ve had playing outside for us. He’s got really good length. He can press. Gives us the ability to press probably more than we have. We’ve been moving Aubrey around. He’s playing spear for us, he’s playing high safety. Those have been kind of the mainstays. Anthony Wilson has made a really big step for us. Really pleased with where he’s at and now, we need some other guys to step up. We haven’t had the consistency in some of those other guys that we need. Like we needed Jaheem Joseph. We needed KK (Kekoura Tarnue) to come on. We need the Jackson brothers to come on. We need TJ Crandall to come on. I think Key’on Washington has been a pleasant surprise.”

Thoughts on the wide receivers

“I like our receiver group. I think that all those guys that were here with us last year that played a lot of football have made a definitive step. You can see Preston Fox is a lot stronger. That’s a credit to what he’s done in winter and then summer. Traylon Ray, Rodney Gallagher, and Hudson Clement are just following kind of a natural progression. Jaden Bray and Justin Robinson are going to add an element for us. They just got to learn what to do and how we play and what our expectations are. They’re going to play a role. And then DayDay Farmer - he’s elite with the ball in his hands, so we got to figure out ways how to use him.”

More on DayDay Farmer

“He’s a guy that looks thin, but he plays really strong. Mike (Joseph) was really impressed this summer…he’s probably in the mid 160s. He’ll probably play about 170 by the time we get to the season. But he’s got twitch and he’s got some explosiveness and he’s a lot stronger than maybe his body type looks which is going to give him the ability to play. He’s made several competitive plays. He was good yesterday in our eleven on eleven work and so I’m excited about him. He’s going to earn some playing time if he continues this.”

If he'd rather ease into Penn State versus playing them Week 1

“It is what it is at this point. I think it’s a great showcase game. If you asked any coach, we’d love to ease into it, right? We’ve played a couple of FCS first games and those are positive. You learned a little bit more about your team before you play a rivalry game. But that’s not what we have, so it’s like, eh. It is what it is. We play Penn State, they’re a top ten team in the country. I was looking at a bunch of draft boards and I went over this with our team the other day, there’s a whole lot of Penn State guys listed. FOX is probably going to kick it off at probably 12:06 or 12:07 on August 31st and we better be ready. It doesn’t matter what I’d like for it to be or who I’d like for it to be against. We play Penn State and we got to perform. The expectation is that we will and that we’ll perform at a high level.”

Rodney Gallagher’s reps on special teams and defense

“Returning-wise, he’s probably another year away from that if we stay healthy. But he’s definitely our second guy back there at the punt return. I’m really proud of how he’s really matured and improved and taken on that responsibility. The first four days we didn’t do a whole lot with him on defense. This week, we’ve amped it up and fully expect him to play snaps on both sides of the ball.”

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