It’s safe to say that WVU’s defense left much to be desired in 2012. With a new defensive coordinator at the helm, this WVU defense seems to be picking up what Keith Patterson is laying down. 2012 could be summed up by the word “embarrassing”, but Dana Holgorsen’s Mountaineers are putting last year behind them, and gaining a “nasty” mentality going forward.
The Mountaineers defense gave up 472.8 yards per game last season, with an average of 6.2 yards per play. That’s a first down on every other play for the opposing team. That makes it pretty tough to win. When WVU lost, they gave up an average of 529.3 yards per game.
Now, as the 2013 season is officially underway, the team is one year older, one year smarter, and one year hungrier.
Senior defensive lineman Shaq Rowell believes the defense is buying into an attack style defense.
“If you want to be a good defense, I feel like you have to have a nasty mindset,” Rowell said.
Sophomore free safety Karl Joseph shared Rowell’s sentiments, saying, “That’s our mentality. We have a chip on our shoulders. We’re going to be very physical this year.”
Rowell said that coach Patterson is simplifying the defense and has them “going straight forward instead of stepping sideways.”
For the veteran players like Rowell, Broderick Jenkins, and Will Clarke, this season will mark the end of their time at WVU. They certainly want to leave their mark on the team for future seasons and have fully embraced the leadership of young guys like Joseph and redshirt-sophomore linebacker Isaiah Bruce.
Jenkins said he loved bringing in a new group of players. “It’s a new group of guys trying to see how we can put things together. As far as that, I love the energy. A lot of the young kids came out and really showed that they’re trying to compete, as well as the older guys,” he said.
“Last year, we had a lot of young guys. We had ten freshmen playing,” Rowell said, “This year, those freshmen have experience now .”
Bruce, being one of the younger guys, feels more like a mature veteran and mentor to the guys even younger than he is.
“I think they’re going to do pretty well,” Bruce stated, “We played a lot of younger players last year, and we’ve been doing so many reps with everyone. It’s going to be interesting in this camp, and it’s going to lead to improvement for everybody.”
Whether sophomores or seniors, all of the players on the team are working on getting into the same “nasty” mentality.
“We have a moving on attitude with it, I would say. We learn from it, leave it in the past and build on that for this year,” Clarke said, “We need to be more consistent, more aggressive, get off blocks and make plays.”
This defense, at least from the beginning, now have a mean streak running through them. It might take a big mean streak to get through the woes of last season, but Joseph and the rest of the defense are making strides to do just that.
“We just forget about last season. Last season doesn’t matter. What happened last year is done with so we are just focusing on this season.”
