MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – It was another good day of work for the West Virginia University football team as it continues preseason preparations.
Today's late-morning practice also included about 1,500 fans inside Milan Puskar Stadium as part of Fan Day. West Virginia players and coaches visited with Mountaineer fans up on the west concourse of the stadium to sign autographs and take pictures. Afterward, fans were invited to stick around and watch the team practice in shorts and helmets.
Overall, coach Neal Brown said he was pleased with the work his team put forth this afternoon.
"For day number two I thought I was really clean," he said afterward. "I knew our energy was going to be good because we had people in the stands. I thought we had a great Fan Day turnout. It was fun. I know our fans really enjoyed it, especially the young kids, but our players enjoyed it too."
Today's practice consisted of a lot of technique and fundamental work. Yesterday's practice up on the Steve Antoline Family Practice Field consisted of split-squad work, with two units practicing separately to maximize repetitions.
And while today's practice was a full-squad workout, the two different groups once again split up on different sides of the field while working the same practice scripts.
Toward the bowl end of the stadium, quarterback Jarret Doege worked with the No. 1 offense and looked sharp completing several passes down the field.
He was particularly proficient with his throws to the corner of the end zone where he consistently hit his receivers with accurate passes. Sean Ryan, Isaiah Esdale and Winston Wright Jr. each produced touchdown catches, and Sam Brown also had a long grab down the middle of the field during skeleton drill.
That Doege aerial traveled 50 or 55 yards in the air before landing into Brown's arms in stride.
"I thought he was sharp," Brown said of Doege. "Day one he was sharp. He's worked so hard over the last eight months on his body. He's worked on fundamentals. He feels really confident in what we're doing and I thought he was decisive today, which is what we want him to be."
Toward the end of today's practice, the team got in some goal line situational work – something Brown believes is necessary in order to win football games. He placed the ball on the five-yard line and had a best of five competition between the offense and the defense. The two units were about even with the defense getting three stops and the offense scoring twice.
"We don't have officials yet – we'll bring them in when we put pads on – but those are game-winning plays right there," Brown pointed out. "You get third and goal and fourth and goal and those are plays that decide the game, and you never know when those plays are going to be so we feel like we've got to work them a lot and there is a bunch to clean up there on both sides."
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Yesterday's practice concluded with Evan Staley successfully converting a long field goal to avoid the team doing up-downs.
Today's practice concluded with a long-snapper challenge pitting J.P. Hadley against Austin Brinkman. The two snappers were required to make one snap into a target with the team equally divided up between the two of them.
Brinkman managed to hit the target with his snap.
"We feel like we have two snappers who are capable," Brown noted. "We've had two phenomenal long snappers the last two years and we feel really confident in J.P. Hadley and Austin Brinkman. We want to see who is going to step up under stress and Brinkman did today."
Brown said Sunday's closed practice will be a continuation of what the team has done the first two days.
"I think some separation starts on day three because the first day everyone is excited, the second day was Fan Day and now we're kind of getting into the grind of camp," he said. "We'll start to see some separation between the people who really love it and are really committed and the people who are kind of just interested."
Brown said yesterday the team will be in camp mode until Aug. 24 with exclusive Maryland prep beginning on Aug. 25. The first day of the fall semester is Aug. 18.
Tickets for the 2021 season remain on sale and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
Also, be sure to check out what the two coordinators, Gerad Parker and Jordan Lesley, had to say following today's practice by logging on and subscribing to Mountaineer athletics' official YouTube channel. There is great content posted on there daily.
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August 08, 2021 at 03:20AM
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WVU's Brown Pleased With Fan Day Turnout and Practice Work Inside Milan Puskar Stadium Saturday - WVU Athletics
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