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MORGANTOWN -- Mission complete. Well, almost complete.
That was the word as first-year West Virginia University football coach Neal Brown met with reporters Wednesday for National Letter of Intent Signing Day.
"Exciting day," Brown said. "Not your normal signing day like in the past. Top priority for us was two-fold. First, it was getting to know the players we already had on our roster and second to solidify those who had signed in December."
Former WVU coach Dana Holgorsen, who left to take over the reins at the University of Houston following the Mountaineers loss to Syracuse in the bowl game, and his staff inked 18 players during the early signing period in December.
"The way we approached them (the early signees) was as new recruits," Brown said. "We wanted to keep them here if they still wanted to be here. So, what we did we went about re-recruiting those guys. Either me or a member of my staff went around to each one of them just like we were recruiting them for the first time.
"I thought the previous staff did a great job of recognizing talent."
A trio of those -- Capital High School's Kerry Martin Jr., and junior college transfers Taijh Alston (Copiah-Lincoln CC) and Dreshun Miller (Eastern Arizona College) -- were already enrolled at WVU as were Alabama transfer linebacker VanDarius Cowan and Eastern Arizona College transfer Isaiah Esdale.
"We tried to get a vision of what our needs were," Brown said. "They signed a lot of receivers in December, so we felt like we needed to add some guys in our secondary."
So, Brown and his staff went after, and received LOIs from, Cocoa High School (Cocoa, Fla.) safety Rashean Lynn Jr. and Lee County High School (Leesburg, Ga.) cornerback Tavian Mayo.
Both players had been on Brown's radar as possible recruits when he was at Troy.
"Tavian (Mayo) is from Lee County which is about two hours from Troy," Brown said. "Vic (Koenning) recruited that school at Troy. We've known about Tavian for a long time. So, we were able to close that one late. He's athletic. He can compete right away.
"Rashean (Lynn Jr.) is 6-foot-4, almost 6-5. Has a ton of talent. We are going to start him off as a safety, but he could help us in a number of areas. He has length and that's just not something you can teach."
The third addition to the Class of 2019 is Navarre High School (Navarre, Fla.) 300-pound defensive lineman Jordan Jefferson.
"Jordan (JJ) Jefferson is from Navarre, about two hours from Troy. Knew him since he was a freshman. Great demeanor. He's gotten better every year. You can see that, and it is why his recruiting exploded this year. He's versatile."
A fourth addition came via the transfer route -- University of Oklahoma quarterback Austin Kendall.
"Recruiting is really about building relationships," Brown said. "And, I had built a relationship with Kendall when I tried to recruit him to Troy. I coached his brother when I was at Kentucky, so the relationship is there.
"And with only two scholarship quarterbacks on the roster, we understood that we needed another player in that room."
Kendall is expected to battle University of Miami transfer Jack Allison, who quarterbacked the Mountaineers in the bowl game, and sophomore to be Trey Lowe, who will be playing baseball this spring.
That brings the number of players in the Class of 2019 to 22.
"You guys can do the math," Bown said. "I think we have three slots left in our class. But we aren't going to fill those slots just to be filling them.
"I'm always looking for ways to improve our roster."
Brown also announced that the annual Gold-Blue Spring game has been set for 1 p.m. Saturday, April 13, at Mountaineer Field.