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Wickline Ready To Take WVU Reins

New assistant looks to widen the pocket

WICKLINE

By JIM BUTTA

For The Intelligencer

MORGANTOWN — The road has been a long and winding one for University of Florida graduate Joe Wickline. A 34-year coaching career that includes stops at Tennessee, Delta State, Ole Miss, Pearl River CC, SW Mississippi CC, Baylor, Middle Tennessee State, Florida, Oklahoma State and Texas now finds the former Gator lettermen in Morgantown, where West Virginia football coach Dana Holgorsen hopes the veteran assistant can help the offense take the next step toward becoming a nationally ranked unit.

“Arguably the best “O” line coach I’ve been around and I’ve made that statement on more than one coach,” Holgorsen said during the Big 12’s Media Days. “He brings a wealth of knowledge. I’ve got a good “A” line coach in Ron Crook, who is still heading up the offensive line meetings.

“What Joe is going to bring to the table is he’s got a wealth of knowledge when it comes to football in general. I feel like we need to get back to our roots just a little bit more, maintain the run game that we did last year that allowed us to have the Big 12’s leading rusher in Wendell Smallwood. And though he’s moved on to the NFL, I feel like we’ve got three capable bodies to do the same stuff that Wendell did, and then we’ve got to improve in the pass game.

“Averaging 35 points a game, being a top-20 offense isn’t good enough in this league. So we’ve got to move the ball a little bit more, score a little bit more points if we want to be in contention to win it.”

Enter Wickline whose last team, Tezxas, ranked No. 7 nationally in fewest interceptions, No. 17 in rushing offense and No. 26 in red-zone offense for a program that finished 5-7.

He takes over an offensive attack at WVU that ranked No. 6 (34 ppg) in scoring offense in the Big 12, No. 2 in rushing offense (228.2 ypg), No. 6 in pass offense (251.5 ypg), No. 6 in total offense (479.7 ypg) and No. 7 in red-zone offense (80.3 percent).

“So having Coach Wickline be able to widen that pocket a little bit, having the timing with him and all these receivers that we got, I think it’s going to make a bunch of difference. If we can maintain the running game where we’re at and improving that passing game a little bit, I feel like we’ll be where we need to be,” Holgorsen said.

Widening the pocket will place a larger burden on tackles Yodny Cajuste and Marcell Lazard, but West Virginia’s newest assistant believes the duo is ready for the challenge.

“I think the big thing is from what we wanted to do and what we wanted to see production-wise from all the guys, is that this is a time to get in good cardio shape, this is a time to get strength, this is a time that you are away from football but now we’re building it,” Wickline said. “It is going to continue on. We are in phases now. It went spring football and now we are in the summer. Then we are in two-a-days and the season. As far as tackles go, I think we’ve seen them get better and better.

“I know they worked on foot work and they worked on their weight, weight distribution, balance and flexibility. From what I have seen they did a good job.”

The depth at the position also appears to be solid with Rob Dowdy and Sylvester Townes backing up Cajuste at left tackle and Union Local graduate Colton McKivitz and Dontae Angus behind Lazard on the right side of the offensive line.

“We’ve seen improvement from all of them,” said Crook, a former offensive-line coach at Stanford. “We need to continue that improvement when camp opens in August.”

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