West Virginia’s defensive slump has forced defensive coordinator Zac Alley to open everything up, and that includes the depth chart.
Alley said no jobs are locked down as the Mountaineers look for answers on that side of the ball. The staff is willing to give more chances to players who haven’t seen much time and move pieces around in search of the best fit.
“I told everybody it's an open job,” Alley said. “I mean, ain't nobody solidified as a starter. We aren't good enough to say you got 11 starters out there, so we're trying to put the most athletic guys we can out there to give us an opportunity and positions that we feel like can be successful.”
A lot of the movement could come in the secondary, where several players are capable of lining up at both corner and safety. West Virginia also has three safety spots, which gives the staff room to shift personnel and see whether a different combination can stabilize things.
Alley stressed that the staff is digging into every part of the operation to figure out what needs to change. That means coaching points, communication, practice structure, meetings and even where players are being used.
“You have to assess what you do well and what you do poorly and then try and fix those things, whether that's a coaching point, whether that's something not getting across, whether that looks like how we meet, how we do practice, who we play where. We've had a lot of collaborative discussions about that in the last week or two.
I believe in my guys. You go through a bad stretch, and suddenly, like, nobody knows how to coach.
I get how that sounds. Like, 'Oh, nobody knows how to coach anybody,' and 'We're terrible.'
We haven't played well; I agree with that. Nobody says we have.
I don't think we have. Some of my coaches have been coaching for 35 years and have multiple first-round draft picks, so it's not like they forgot how to coach guys.
There's just a lot of things that go into winning and losing. We assess everything we do, but I have a lot of confidence in my staff, and I believe in who they are, and I believe in the track record they had shown prior to the last couple games.
They're my guys, and we've been here.”
The message from Alley is clear: the staff isn’t being blown up, but adjustments are coming. Rich Rodriguez had already pointed out a week ago that sometimes the fix is as basic as being more direct with players about alignment and responsibilities.
At this point, West Virginia’s defensive problems are being treated as a full-team, full-operation issue. Coaching, game plan, communication and execution all have to improve, and Alley made it clear he sees it that way too.
It’s not one thing. It’s all of it together.
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