The safety board has been a strange one for West Virginia through the summer. The Mountaineers spent June hosting campers and visitors, then watched the calendar shift into a dead period as the staff turned its attention to vacation time and preseason work. And when it came to safeties, the visit period produced plenty of movement - just not the kind West Virginia wanted.
Three safeties came through on official visits, and all three ended up committing elsewhere. Jalen Welch chose Syracuse, Ryinn Fox picked Cincinnati and Connor Hites landed at Penn.
That left some real questions about how high those players actually sat on West Virginia’s board, especially in the cases of Fox and Hites. If they weren’t priority targets, the obvious follow-up is why they were brought in at all.
And if they were priority targets, then the bigger mystery is whether the staff had other names in play that never surfaced publicly.
For the 2028 class and beyond, the picture is a little different. West Virginia has sent out a few new offers, but the one prospect who really stood out on campus was Brandon Bennett of McKees Rocks (PA) Montour.
Bennett checked in at 6-foot-3, 210 pounds, and while he’s being tracked as a defensive athlete right now, there’s also a chance he grows into a linebacker depending on how his body develops over the next couple of years. Either way, he’s clearly a player the Mountaineers like, and he made a strong early impression on the staff.
In Other News...
Former Mountaineer Kerr Kriisa Is Suddenly At Center Of FBI Trouble
Kerr Kriisa, the former West Virginia point guard, has suddenly become part of a federal case that stretches well beyond basketball. According to reports, the FBI arrested him in connection with a multi-year, multi-million-dollar fraud investigation, a stunning development for a player whose Mountaineer stint in 2023-24 is now being pulled into a much larger legal spotlight.
Kriisa was taken into custody and is expected to be extradited to West Virginia for an initial court appearance next week. For now, the most important details remain out of public view, but the fact that federal authorities are pursuing a case tied to his time in Morgantown is enough to leave the program and its followers waiting for the next shoe to drop. [Read more 🡒]
WVUs New Roster Is Already Creating One Big Preseason Debate
West Virginias 2026-27 basketball roster is already drawing plenty of preseason debate because the pieces are so easy to imagine in different ways. Miles Sadler arrives as the face of the program and the obvious tone-setter, while Sylla and the rest of the front-line options give the Mountaineers a mix of size, skill and lineup flexibility that could make this group look very different depending on how it all comes together.
Seydou Traore adds another layer to the conversation as the most experienced bench option, with enough scoring punch and defensive value to matter well beyond a standard reserve role. The bigger question for West Virginia is how all of those parts fit once the season gets moving, especially with a roster that already invites arguments about who should lead, who should finish games and which supporting pieces can push the whole thing forward. [Read more 🡒]