MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — In the throes of preseason’s opening week, Dana Holgorsen is reluctant to form early assumptions regarding West Virginia’s depth-chart.
Holgorsen said his staff intends to make its first round of meaningful evaluations Saturday, which is an NCAA-mandated day off for players. By then, the Mountaineers will have practiced six times — twice each in shorts, uppers and full pads.
“There’ll be no football so coaches will have a long time to sit and they’ve got six days of video,” Holgorsen said. “That’s the first day we can say, ‘I think that guy has got a chance to really help us’ or ‘that guy really doesn’t.'”
More from Wednesday’s media briefing
— Based on a TedTalk presentation Holgorsen watched last year, he began taking “meeting walks” with coaches around the stadium. He does a 2.5-mile loop up Law School hill, around the president’s house and back to the stadium.
“They’ve been fairly therapeutic, so we’re up to about 5 miles a day with two trips,” he said.
At age 46, he joked that he’s too old to run the route, but “sometimes when I’m not in a good mood we’ll just go real fast.”
— In a stance that rings curious from a college coach, Holgorsen said he believes kids should not begin playing football until the ninth grade, as his son Logan did.
That comes in the wake of several eighth-graders receiving Power Five scholarship offers. One of West Virginia’s current players, David Sills, famously received an offer from then-USC coach Lane Kiffin at age 13.
— While NCAA rules can be sticky, Holgorsen said he’s just being “a dad” to Logan, a junior quarterback who left Morgantown High this summer and transferred to Baltimore powerhouse St. Frances Academy. “He’s done well at camps and I guess people like him, so that’s good.”
Logan will be a teammate of West Virginia commitment Leddie Brown, a four-star running back who recently transferred from Smyrna, Del., to St. Frances. The school had 10 players sign Division I scholarships last February.
— Amid raving about the leadership platforms assumed by fullback Elijah Wellman and linebacker Al-Rasheed Benton, Holgorsen won’t acquiesce over their desires to swap spots for a few plays this season: “No. Absolutely not. They want to, but that’s just smack talk.”
— Holgorsen joked that he has learned the name of Rice graduate transfer Nate German, after calling him “Germain” in an interview session Sunday. The 6-foot-2 German is playing inside receiver at WVU after throwing 10 passes in three seasons as a quarterback at Rice.
“He’s smart — he graduated from Rice,” Holgorsen said. “But it’s tough to judge a kid that’s been repping for three days.”