West Virginia cornerback Beanie Bishop Jr., bottom, breaks up a pass intended for Penn State wide receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith (1) during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Penn State, Saturday, Sept. 2, 2023, in State College, Pa. (AP Photo/Barry Reeger)

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of a two-part look at WVU All-American cornerback Beanie Bishop on how he came out of nowhere to become one of the elite players in college football.

MORGANTOWN — All you really have to know about Beanie Bishop, West Virginia’s consensus All-American quarterback, is that this season he played 95% of the defensive snaps.

Think they didn’t need him?

With all due apologies to the lyrics of the song “Centerfield”, his theme song could have been:

Put me in coach,

I’m ready to play today.

Put me in coach,

I’m ready to play … on the field

No raising his hand to come out because he was tired. No limping around. Just did what he does.

“To get to the next level I have to be on the field and be available,” he said in his pre-Duke’s Mayo Bowl interview. “You can’t make plays if you are on the sideline. If I’m healthy, I’m going to play football. I was happy to be out of there. Yes, 95% of the snaps is crazy, but that’s what I came here for, the opportunity to play.”

He came from Minnesota for one final year because he WASN’T playing 95% of the snap.

And that’s only part of the story. Bishop came to WVU through the transfer portal and completely immersed himself in the job of being a football player.

Sun up to sun down, he was in football mode.

“It’s been not just his on-field performance but his work ethic, his practice,” head coach Neal Brown said. “How he prepared has really helped our defensive backfield. The younger guys — even some of the older guys — he’s made a difference to. We were better because of him.”

“He’s about the right things,” ShaDon Brown, his position coach and co-defensive coordinator, said. “He came here as a six-year player, a guy who had been to a stop where it didn’t go like he expected it to. We’d recruited him the year before and really wanted him. Finally, when he came he had a blue collar mentality.”

That’s the proper attire if you want to play West Virginia-style football.

“I told you guys this fall he had that alpha mentality from the day he stepped on campus. He just worked. He overachieved a lot because he didn’t worry about some of the things other transfers worry about. He’s played himself into a position to play in the National Football League.”

The inner workings of a player are sometimes as important, or more so, than what you can get from watching him play.

Skill is one thing, the desire to to perfect that skill is something else, as ShaDon Brown would admit.

“They are few and far between,” he answered when asked about finding players like that. “You have to do a really good job of vetting the young man. Usually, you know young people pretty quick and what they are about because you ask them what’s important to them. If the first thing they say out of their mouth is NIL and things of that nature, then you probably know real quick they are not about what being a great football player is all about.

“It’s cliche but every great football player I have ever coached has been a worker. They have done the extra things. You guys know our strength coach, Mike Joseph. You know he’s hard to please and Mike doesn’t like very many people, but he likes people who work.

“There’s not many defensive backs who like working, but Mike Joseph loves Beanie Bishop and he’s only had him for six months.”

The result is that work spreads like a contagious disease within the locker room. Showing up early, staying late. Always in the film room.

All of that from a leader sets the tone that allowed WVU this year to advance from what was seen as the 14th best team in the Big 12 to a contender.

“He’s made an impact in the locker room; he’s made an impact outside of the building with being a good citizen and a good human and he’s made an impact on the grass. That’s a win-win for Beanie and West Virginia,” ShaDon Brown said.

It didn’t take long for everyone to understand what Bishop was all about. Normally, there’s a moment, a play or a situation, where the light goes on for the player. It wasn’t that way with Bishop.

“I don’t know if there was a particular moment,” ShaDon Brown said. “When he first got here you saw a guy who didn’t know many people but who was always in the building, in the film room or in the weight room doing extra things. You could just see that this guy was serious about his craft. He knows what he wants to do and what he wants to be.

“You get on the field and you see a hard worker, you see a leader and I think you do that because he gained the trust of his teammates really quickly,” Brown went on. “Some guys come in and they just sort of feel their way through and try to fit in and make friends. He didn’t start out that way. He started as a hard charger, alpha male saying ‘This is what I do and I’m going to try to bring guys with me.'”

He led by example.

“What happens is you have young guys around him who are gravitating toward that. Now, instead of going back to the dorm room to play video games they go back down to the weight room to do extra. He always brings people with him,” Brown said.

And, he is bringing the team along with him to the bowl game.

At this time of year players across the country are opting out of bowl games to prepare for the NFL.

Not Beanie Bishop.

“I had zero doubts he was going to play in the bowl game because he’s appreciative of West Virginia and the opportunity he was given here. He loves to play ball,” Brown said. “He told you guys he didn’t come here for NIL and all the things guys come for. He came just to work and make plays and play with high energy.

“When the bowl game was announced, every single day he would text me and ask, which bowl game are we playing in? I knew he would stay and I don’t think anything could have changed his mind because he likes playing the game of football. He doesn’t just love what football gives him.

“That’s the difference with guys who opt out. They love what football gives them as opposed to just loving playing football.”