MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — After a light walk-through practice on Thursday, WVU head coach Neal Brown picked up the intensity on Day 5 of Mountaineer preseason training camp.
“Coming off a slow day yesterday, I thought we were a little slow getting started,” Brown said. “But we coached them hard today and I thought they responded at the end of practice. It was warm and we need warm days. And we had some real growth. Some of our better players really stepped up.
“We wanted to push them. We are doing it in a smart way because we are going out here for a short time.”
Brown mentioned wide receivers Sam James, Isaiah Esdale and Ali Jennings, running back Leddie Brown, offensive lineman James Gmiter, safeties Sean Mahone, Tykee Smith and Noah Guzman, kicker Evan Staley and defensive lineman Akeem Mesidor as standout players in today’s practice sessions.
Brown said the team will practice inside Milan Puskar Stadium Saturday and will workout in full pads. Full contact tackling drills may still be a few days off.
“We are not being real physical right now. But we are really pushing them mentally to push through some of the fatigue.
“A lot of the guys in our program haven’t practiced the way we want to practice because they haven’t been here. We had two spring practices and now we have had four true football practices.”
Brown believes at this point that the deepest unit on the WVU roster could be the receiving core.
“A lot of them are young so we have to continue to grow them up. Gerad (Parker) is doing a great job with those guys. I think the most depth we have on our football team is at that position.”