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Turning the Corner
By Christopher Marshall for MSNsportsNET.com
August 16, 2007


Senior Vaughn Rivers is one of six players contending for the two starting cornerback jobs.
Dale Sparks/All-Pro Photography

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Competition has become a staple of the West Virginia football program. Those competitions are waged every day in practice, where no starter -- regardless of his accolades -- is guaranteed his position. It must be earned daily by fighting off all challengers.

Nowhere has that theme played out more during the first week-and-a- half of fall camp than at the cornerback position where six guys are battling it out for two starting spots.

“You’ve got the three seniors (Antonio) Lewis, (Vaughn) Rivers and (Larry) Williams, and then (Kent) Richardson, (Ellis) Lankster and (Guesly) Dervil. They’re all six right in there,” Rodriguez said Monday following practice. “That’s probably one of the most competitive positions we’ve got. I’ve been pretty pleased so far.”

Vaughn Rivers believes Rodriguez has good reason to be. The Pittsburgh, Pa., native sees the defensive backfield coming together nicely, but even more pleasing than that is what the senior corner has been hearing.

“Everybody is out there talking and that’s one thing we didn’t do last year,” Rivers said. “There wasn’t enough communication and guys weren’t getting on each other at the different levels of the defense.”

Fast forward a year. According to Rivers the whole defense is filled with chatterboxes. As further proof, safety Quinton Andrews addressed the media last week with a hoarse throat having barely enough of a voice to field his questions.

“The defensive backs are getting on the defensive linemen and the linebackers are getting on us so the defense is coming together really well,” Rivers said.

Why the increased talk from this group of once mute Mountaineers? Rivers will tell you it’s simply a product of being a year older and a year wiser.

“It was a lack of experience. Now that we’ve all got that year under our belts and we’re coming back as veterans we realize that a key element in games is good communication,” Rivers said. “Once you get in the game there are no coaches to help. It’s just us players. As long as we can do that now we’ll be able to carry it over into the game.”

Two guys that don’t bring experience but do bring a great deal of talent to the secondary are transfers Ellis Lankster and Ryan Mundy. Lankster comes to Morgantown from Jones Junior College while Mundy is a post-graduate transfer from Michigan with one year of eligibility remaining.

Rivers says both have made steady progress throughout fall camp.

“They are both doing really well. They are fitting in well and picking up the schemes. They are back there making plays and starting to get comfortable,” Rivers said. “They will have to get comfortable and when that happens they will be able to make things happen for us.”

Mundy is not exactly your typical first-year player, having started 18 games at safety for Michigan. Rivers believes that once he grasps the new defense, he will be able to draw on his experience to help younger players.

“He’s talking a lot back there and getting comfortable and once he does that I think he’ll probably be able to start to help some of the younger guys,” Rivers said.

Without giving away any of the team’s secrets, Rivers admits the secondary has experimented with some new looks to help them improve their play this season.

“We’ve got some new wrinkles we have been trying out and we’re trying to give the young guys a chance to pick them up,” Rivers said. “Once we get closer to game time I’m sure we’ll start to work on those new wrinkles more and more. We definitely have a couple to throw in there before game time.”

The experience of the three seniors at corner has allowed the coaches the luxury of tinkering with things and adding new wrinkles.

“That experience not only gives us the chance to grow with what we did from last year but it gives the coaches a chance to throw in some new things to help us not get exploited by some of the things we were doing last year,” Rivers said.

With the combination of fierce competition, increased communication, two solid transfers and a new wrinkle or two, look for improved play from the Mountaineer secondary this fall.