West Virginia football: Way-too-early 2-deep depth chart projection for 2019
By Phil Poling
Wide Receiver
There’ll be plenty of opportunities in West Virginia’s passing attack after studs Gary Jennings and David Sills graduated to the NFL. That duo combined for 119 catches, 1,903 receiving yards, and 28 touchdowns in 2018. There were other contributors last season, but somebody will need to emerge as a No. 1 target; Marcus Simms showed in 2018 he could grow into that role.
Starting wide receivers: Tevin Bush, Marcus Simms, T.J. Simmons
Reserve wide receivers: Sam James, Dillon Spalding, Bryce Wheaton
Marcus Simms is the top returning wide receiver from last year’s squad, a team he caught 46 passes and racked up 699 receiving yards for. T.J. Simmons is the only other returning target that caught over 17 passes. He hauled in 28 passes, fourth-most on the team, and totaled 341 receiving yards. Expect these two to be the go-to targets on the outside, freeing up space for the versatile Tevin Bush everywhere else.
The 2019 season for West Virginia football, at its absolute worst, should consist of at least one thing: Top-Ten plays from Tevin Bush. With his quickness and the ability to line up and attack a defense from anywhere, Bush should garner between 10-to-15 touches a game. His quickness makes him a perfect target in the screen game, and defenses will be forced to rotate if he motions pre-snap. But what if Brown simply lines Bush up in the backfield? At 5-foot-6, it’ll be difficult for defenders to find — let alone tackle — a ball carrier who is on average a foot shorter than his offensive lineman.
After Bush, Simms, and Simmons, there’s not much experience at wide receiver for the Mountaineers. Of the eight wide receivers not-named Bush, Simms, or Simmons on the roster, only two of them registered a catch a season ago. Somebody always emerges at this position in Morgantown, hopefully it happens sooner than later for Neal Brown and Co.