West Virginia is about to lose one of its starting corners to the transfer portal.
Jason Chambers will use the fifth year of eligibility he was recently granted, but he plans to finish his college career somewhere else once the portal opens for those players on August 3rd. Over the next few days, other players in the same situation will be making the same call: stay put or move on.
Chambers gave the Mountaineers a solid season in 12 games last year. He finished with 34 tackles, four passes defended, three tackles for loss, and one interception.
He was steady in the tackling department, too, posting a missed tackle rate of just 10%. When quarterbacks challenged him, 52.6% of those throws were completed for 298 yards and three touchdowns.
There were also stretches where he looked especially sharp. Against TCU, Chambers allowed just one catch on five targets. The week before against UCF, he didn’t give up a completion on three targets, even though the Knights found success attacking the rest of West Virginia’s secondary.
The closing month, though, was a different story. Chambers allowed eight catches on 14 targets over that stretch. According to Pro Football Focus, he earned grades of 61.4 at Houston, 64.9 against Colorado, 47.7 at Arizona State, and 55.7 against Texas Tech.
The fit at West Virginia also changed around him. At 5-foot-11, Chambers occasionally lost out because he didn’t have the length to make a play on the ball, and the Mountaineers made a clear effort to add size at corner this offseason. With the bodies they brought in, there doesn’t appear to be much room for Chambers to carve out major snaps.
Before his time in Morgantown, Chambers spent time at North Carolina Central and Appalachian State.
West Virginia now appears set to lean on Georgia State transfer Chams Diagne, who is 6-foot-3 and 208 pounds, as its top corner. The other starting spot remains up for grabs.
Nick Taylor, who moved down from safety and is 6-foot-1, is in the mix, along with ChaMarryus Bomar, Keyshawn Robinson, junior college additions Da'Mun Allen and Rayshawn Reynolds Jr., and possibly Kent State transfer Jaire Rawlison or true freshman Vincent Smith, who stands at nearly 6-foot-2. Nickel/sams Geimere Latimer and Maliek Hawkins could also slide outside, and safety Andrew Powdrell is another option.
In Other News...
West Virginia Suddenly Has A New Roster Question Across Three Sports
A fresh eligibility ruling out of Colorado has suddenly put West Virginia in an awkward spot across three sports, with a federal judge ordering the NCAA to grant an extra year to a broad group of athletes whose college clocks are about to run out. For the Mountaineers, the ripple effect could touch football, basketball and baseball, where roster planning is already tight and every scholarship spot matters.
The NCAA is expected to challenge the decision, but even the uncertainty is enough to complicate how West Virginia thinks about next season and beyond. If the injunction stands, the bigger question becomes how roster limits and revenue-sharing rules will be adjusted, and whether the Mountaineers will have to reshuffle plans on the fly while trying to keep their lineups intact. [Read more 🡒]
WVU Could Suddenly Have Some Unexpected Roster Decisions To Make
A federal ruling out of Colorado has put another roster wrinkle in front of college football programs, including West Virginia, by opening the door for some former players from the 2022 student-athlete class to chase an additional year of eligibility. Judge Charlotte Sweeney of the U.S. District Court of Colorado granted a class-wide preliminary injunction that pauses the old NCAA framework for those athletes, creating a possible avenue for ex-Mountaineers to return to school if the decision holds.
For WVU, the timing matters because the NCAA is expected to appeal to the Tenth Circuit, and that process could stretch on for months before the picture clears. In the meantime, the Mountaineers may have to sort through an unexpected list of players who could become eligible again, a situation that can affect scholarship planning, depth charts and the broader shape of the roster well before fall camp gets here. [Read more 🡒]