MORGANTOWN - It's been what, five years since West Virginia went into a season feeling fairly comfortable with its cornerbacks?
Sure, it might be a stretch to assume things will be different this fall. After all, Keith Tandy's foibles at South Florida last October aren't that far in the past. Brandon Hogan's lack of any meaningful work in the spring can't be considered a plus. And behind those two is a collection of rookies or near-rookies who have a lot to learn, not to mention prove.
Still, it is a far cry from watching Hogan and Tandy actually learning the position on the job and having nothing but high school kids or veterans who never quite made the grade behind them. With those two starters returning, with promising young guys like Brodrick Jenkins and Pat Miller having a year under their belts and with freshman Ishmael Banks in the fold, Dave Lockwood is feeling just a little bit better.
"Hopefully [the depth] makes us better,'' the West Virginia cornerbacks coach said. "Once [Banks] gets used to the terminology and what we want, I think he'll help us. You'd like to have as many corners as you can get, but as long as we have four, we'll be OK. Our first year here we had two, so we're a lot further ahead now than we were then.
"When you look at guys coming back with experience, you look at Hogan and you look at Tandy. But the one gentleman who kind of stuck out in the spring was Brodrick Jenkins. In the fall, I think it was a situation where he was probably the fifth guy. But after the spring, he's running with the ones right now.''
Part of that, of course, has to do with Hogan's issues during the offseason. First, he wasn't as diligent as the coaches would have liked during winter conditioning, so coach Bill Stewart had him running stadium steps rather than practicing for the first two weeks of the spring. Then when Stewart felt Hogan wasn't paying as much attention to his academics as he should have been, he was taken off the steps and put into study hall.
The bottom line from all of that was that Hogan spent only a handful of days actually on the field during the spring. It naturally opened an opportunity for someone else to step into the corner spot opposite Tandy.
That it was Jenkins who was given the chance ahead of fellow 2009 recruit Pat Miller was a bit of a surprise. Miller was the true freshman who was given the opportunity to play in spots last season while Jenkins rode the bench and held onto his redshirt.
But in the spring, it was Jenkins who consistently played ahead of Miller.
Lockwood said the change in Jenkins was a simple matter of confidence.
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Cornerback depth a rare luxury for WVU
MORGANTOWN - It's been what, five years since West Virginia went into a season feeling fairly comfortable with its cornerbacks?
Sure, it might be a stretch to assume things will be different this fall. After all, Keith Tandy's foibles at South Florida last October aren't that far in the past. Brandon Hogan's lack of any meaningful work in the spring can't be considered a plus. And behind those two is a collection of rookies or near-rookies who have a lot to learn, not to mention prove.
Still, it is a far cry from watching Hogan and Tandy actually learning the position on the job and having nothing but high school kids or veterans who never quite made the grade behind them. With those two starters returning, with promising young guys like Brodrick Jenkins and Pat Miller having a year under their belts and with freshman Ishmael Banks in the fold, Dave Lockwood is feeling just a little bit better.
"Hopefully [the depth] makes us better,'' the West Virginia cornerbacks coach said. "Once [Banks] gets used to the terminology and what we want, I think he'll help us. You'd like to have as many corners as you can get, but as long as we have four, we'll be OK. Our first year here we had two, so we're a lot further ahead now than we were then.
"When you look at guys coming back with experience, you look at Hogan and you look at Tandy. But the one gentleman who kind of stuck out in the spring was Brodrick Jenkins. In the fall, I think it was a situation where he was probably the fifth guy. But after the spring, he's running with the ones right now.''
Part of that, of course, has to do with Hogan's issues during the offseason. First, he wasn't as diligent as the coaches would have liked during winter conditioning, so coach Bill Stewart had him running stadium steps rather than practicing for the first two weeks of the spring. Then when Stewart felt Hogan wasn't paying as much attention to his academics as he should have been, he was taken off the steps and put into study hall.
The bottom line from all of that was that Hogan spent only a handful of days actually on the field during the spring. It naturally opened an opportunity for someone else to step into the corner spot opposite Tandy.
That it was Jenkins who was given the chance ahead of fellow 2009 recruit Pat Miller was a bit of a surprise. Miller was the true freshman who was given the opportunity to play in spots last season while Jenkins rode the bench and held onto his redshirt.
But in the spring, it was Jenkins who consistently played ahead of Miller.
Lockwood said the change in Jenkins was a simple matter of confidence.
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MORGANTOWN - It's been what, five years since West Virginia went into a season feeling fairly comfortable with its cornerbacks?
Sure, it might be a stretch to assume things will be different this fall. After all, Keith Tandy's foibles at South Florida last October aren't that far in the past. Brandon Hogan's lack of any meaningful work in the spring can't be considered a plus. And behind those two is a collection of rookies or near-rookies who have a lot to learn, not to mention prove.
Still, it is a far cry from watching Hogan and Tandy actually learning the position on the job and having nothing but high school kids or veterans who never quite made the grade behind them. With those two starters returning, with promising young guys like Brodrick Jenkins and Pat Miller having a year under their belts and with freshman Ishmael Banks in the fold, Dave Lockwood is feeling just a little bit better.
"Hopefully [the depth] makes us better,'' the West Virginia cornerbacks coach said. "Once [Banks] gets used to the terminology and what we want, I think he'll help us. You'd like to have as many corners as you can get, but as long as we have four, we'll be OK. Our first year here we had two, so we're a lot further ahead now than we were then.
"When you look at guys coming back with experience, you look at Hogan and you look at Tandy. But the one gentleman who kind of stuck out in the spring was Brodrick Jenkins. In the fall, I think it was a situation where he was probably the fifth guy. But after the spring, he's running with the ones right now.''
Part of that, of course, has to do with Hogan's issues during the offseason. First, he wasn't as diligent as the coaches would have liked during winter conditioning, so coach Bill Stewart had him running stadium steps rather than practicing for the first two weeks of the spring. Then when Stewart felt Hogan wasn't paying as much attention to his academics as he should have been, he was taken off the steps and put into study hall.
The bottom line from all of that was that Hogan spent only a handful of days actually on the field during the spring. It naturally opened an opportunity for someone else to step into the corner spot opposite Tandy.
That it was Jenkins who was given the chance ahead of fellow 2009 recruit Pat Miller was a bit of a surprise. Miller was the true freshman who was given the opportunity to play in spots last season while Jenkins rode the bench and held onto his redshirt.
But in the spring, it was Jenkins who consistently played ahead of Miller.
Lockwood said the change in Jenkins was a simple matter of confidence.
"When he first got here my biggest concern was that he was always in position, but he seemed to never make the play,'' Lockwood said. "I got a little worried that he was going to be one of those guys who was always there but never made it. But I found out during the spring that he can get into position and he definitely can make the plays. He's starting to realize that he can do it.''
Like most of WVU's cornerbacks, Jenkins' biggest issue with confidence stemmed from the fact that he was an offensive player in high school. While he played defense and was good at it, he was also a wide receiver and kick returner who, like most high school kids, was simply asked to go out and cover guys on defense. Very few kids come into college knowing much at all about defensive technique and schemes.
Look at WVU's three veterans at the position. Hogan and Tandy were high school quarterbacks. Hogan played as a true freshman as a receiver. Tandy spent nearly two years learning the position before being given a chance to start in place of Hogan in the 2008 Meineke Car Care Bowl. And fifth-year senior Eddie Davis has bounced around during his WVU career from running back to receiver to cornerback.
"It's not that easy just to jump on the defensive side of the ball and get it going,'' Lockwood said. "Especially at that position.''
Hogan and Tandy are proof of that, both having suffered through some embarrassing moments in their early games at the position (Hogan at East Carolina in 2008, Tandy at USF last season). Now, though, the hope is that all that experience - be it good or bad - begins to pay off.
As for Hogan, Lockwood seems fairly unconcerned about the senior missing most of the actual on-field work during the spring.
"It gave us the chance to see what Brodrick could do, and that was a big plus,'' Lockwood said. "Everybody needs a chance to get better and Hogan could have used that time on the field, sure. But at the same time we kind of know what Brandon Hogan can do. After next year he's gone. We've got to find out sooner rather than later what our young guys can do. And I think we're finding that out.''
This article is available only to our premium digital content subscribers.
Cornerback depth a rare luxury for WVU
MORGANTOWN - It's been what, five years since West Virginia went into a season feeling fairly comfortable with its cornerbacks?
Sure, it might be a stretch to assume things will be different this fall. After all, Keith Tandy's foibles at South Florida last October aren't that far in the past. Brandon Hogan's lack of any meaningful work in the spring can't be considered a plus. And behind those two is a collection of rookies or near-rookies who have a lot to learn, not to mention prove.
Still, it is a far cry from watching Hogan and Tandy actually learning the position on the job and having nothing but high school kids or veterans who never quite made the grade behind them. With those two starters returning, with promising young guys like Brodrick Jenkins and Pat Miller having a year under their belts and with freshman Ishmael Banks in the fold, Dave Lockwood is feeling just a little bit better.
"Hopefully [the depth] makes us better,'' the West Virginia cornerbacks coach said. "Once [Banks] gets used to the terminology and what we want, I think he'll help us. You'd like to have as many corners as you can get, but as long as we have four, we'll be OK. Our first year here we had two, so we're a lot further ahead now than we were then.
"When you look at guys coming back with experience, you look at Hogan and you look at Tandy. But the one gentleman who kind of stuck out in the spring was Brodrick Jenkins. In the fall, I think it was a situation where he was probably the fifth guy. But after the spring, he's running with the ones right now.''
Part of that, of course, has to do with Hogan's issues during the offseason. First, he wasn't as diligent as the coaches would have liked during winter conditioning, so coach Bill Stewart had him running stadium steps rather than practicing for the first two weeks of the spring. Then when Stewart felt Hogan wasn't paying as much attention to his academics as he should have been, he was taken off the steps and put into study hall.
The bottom line from all of that was that Hogan spent only a handful of days actually on the field during the spring. It naturally opened an opportunity for someone else to step into the corner spot opposite Tandy.
That it was Jenkins who was given the chance ahead of fellow 2009 recruit Pat Miller was a bit of a surprise. Miller was the true freshman who was given the opportunity to play in spots last season while Jenkins rode the bench and held onto his redshirt.
But in the spring, it was Jenkins who consistently played ahead of Miller.
Lockwood said the change in Jenkins was a simple matter of confidence.
