RE: blurb on wvu from big 12 media days ...

Posted on: July 19, 2016 at 16:48:32 CT

More on the defense from DH

Q. Defensively, Dana, a lot of guys have moved on
to the NFL, Nick and Kari and Daryl, really good
leaders, guys that played a lot of snaps for you a
lot of years. Can they be replaced? Do you have
something in the pipeline for that type of
leadership that they provided?
DANA HOLGORSEN: I was proud of that group of
seniors. All those guys you're talking about, we had --
they're all fourth-year seniors and fifth-year seniors, so
they've been in the program basically as long as I've
been in the program. Those guys were outstanding
developmental guys, guys like Terrell Chestnut, fifthyear
senior had a wonderful year; guys like Kyle Rose,
fifth-year senior, Kwiatkoski, fifth-year senior, Barber,
fifth-year senior, Pettway, fifth-year senior, those -- K.J.
Dillon, fourth-year senior, Karl Joseph, fourth-year
senior. Those guys have played a lot of ball. We
recruited those guys four and five years ago. We didn't
quit recruiting four or five years ago, either.
We got some guys that played behind these guys and
got a lot of experience on special teams. There's nine
fifth-year seniors that are slated to start. Dravon is
going to be a junior and Al Benton is going to be a
senior, so that's a lot of experience, a lot of older guys
played a lot of snaps and I got all the confidence in the
world in Tony Gibson is to get those guys to learn how
to play together. That's what that group last year had
going for them. They played so many snaps together
that they knew how to play together.
I feel like we got the bodies, and we got the players, we
just gotta get those guys to learn how to play together.