Mountaineers welcome plenty of new faces with spring practices about to start

Mar. 21—MORGANTOWN — Spring practices are just around the corner for the WVU football team and there will be plenty of new faces for the Mountaineers. Between transfers and early enrollees, there will be 16 new players when WVU begins its first spring practice on Monday.

Headlining the newcomers is an impressive transfer class of defensive backs with Jaheem Joseph (Northwestern), Garnett Hollis (Northwestern), Ayden Garnes (Duquesne) and TJ Crandall (Colorado State); wide receiver Jaden Bray (Oklahoma State); linebacker Reid Carrico (Ohio State); pass rusher Ty French (Gardner-Webb); offensive lineman Xavier Bausley (Jacksonville State); and defensive lineman TJ Jackson (Troy).

The addition of four transfer defensive backs, as well as the return of cornerback Montre Miller from an injury, has WVU head coach Neal Brown excited for his secondary in 2024.

“This is the deepest we’ve been and we may even continue to add to that room, ” Brown said Thursday.

Hollis and Crandall will both play corner, Joseph will practice at safety and spear and Garnes will train at all three positions. Brown also said returning safety Aubrey Burks will see time at spear this spring.

“We’re going to play Aubrey more at spear ; he played a little bit there in the bowl game, ” Brown said. “He’ll probably get more reps playing spear than he will at deep safety during the spring.”

Hollis and Joseph, both coming from Northwestern, only committed to WVU last month, but were able to make it work with their academics in order to be in Morgantown for spring practice. Joseph has two seasons of eligibility left, while Hollis has one.

“Those guys have played a ton of football and they’ve played quality football in a tough league, ” Brown said. “We wouldn’t bring guys in that have very-little eligibility left unless we felt they could really help. It’ll…


Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/mountaineers-welcome-plenty-faces-spring-023300942.html

Author : The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

Publish date : 2024-03-22 02:33:00

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