MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia’s football team held an officiated scrimmage Saturday. It was practice session No. 11 of the 15 allotted in the spring by the NCAA.
Saturday’s scrimmage included full-contact work for most of the Mountaineers.
Running back Leddie Brown, who WVU is trying to be gentle with the spring, did participate in the scrimmage, though he was basically off limits for the defense when it came to tackling to the ground.
As usual, the quarterbacks also were in two-hand touch mode, other than freshman Garrett Greene, who abstained the gold (do-not-hit) jersey. Instead Greene wore with a white one, like all the non-QB offensive players. Thus full-go, the mobile Greene used his legs to create a number of positive plays in Saturday’s scrimmage through either scrambles or designed runs.
“Garrett was live all day today,” noted WVU head coach Neal Brown. “He had some big runs, which was a positive. He was able to make something out of broken plays. He also made one big pass down the field on a scramble.
“I don’t like doing it all the time, but we told him going into the spring that we would do it one time,” Brown explained of letting the 5-foot-11, 191-pound freshman go live. “I thought today was a good day to do it, and he needs to do it. It’s important for his confidence. Some of the best things he does come when the pocket breaks down.”
West Virginia will conclude spring drills Saturday, April 24 with the annual Gold-Blue Spring Game. That contest will kickoff at 1 p.m., at Mountaineer Field. It is open to the public, and admission is $10. The intrasquad scrimmage will also be broadcast live on ESPN+.
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Taijh Alson has spent a lot of time at West Virginia University but is still looking for an opportunity to make a major impact during the football season.
He hopes his time is finally coming.
The 6-foot-4, 246-pound junior defensive end has been beset by injuries that have kept him off field for all but a handful of games the last two seasons. He’s back on the practice field now, though.
“This is a big spring for him,” Brown stated of Alston. “He’s had some ups and downs. It’s been a long time since he’s consistently been able to play. These reps are very, very valuable for him. We need him to be a force. He’s gotten bigger, and he’s gotten stronger. He’s had a solid spring.”
A native of Lumberton, North Carolina, Alston originally attended East Carolina, but after one year with the Pirates, which included a knee injury, he transferred to Copiah-Lincoln (Miss.) Community College. In his one season at Co-Lin, Alston recorded 51 tackles and seven sacks, catching the eye of then-WVU defensive coordinator Tony Gibson. Alston committed to West Virginia in the fall of 2018 with the intent on enrolling that following January. Before he got to WVU, though, head coach Dana Holgorsen left for Houston, and without a job at West Virginia, Gibbie accepted a position at N.C. State. Despite the change in coaching staffs, though, Alston stuck with his commitment to West Virginia, and arrived in Morgantown in January of 2019.
He worked his way into the defensive end rotation for the ’19 season, but in game two of the year, he sustained a severe knee injury at Missouri. That sidelined him for the remained of that season, and when he suffered another injury during rehab work in the summer of 2020, he was again forced out of the lineup for all but one game that year.
Now healthy, he’s back on the field this spring. With Jeffery Pooler, WVU’s returning starter at defensive end, currently limited as he recovers from offseason surgery, Alston is getting most of the practice reps this spring with the first team at d-end.
“He’s excited. He has great energy every day,” said Brown, who is heading into his third season as West Virginia’s head coach. “When something is taken away from you for as long as it was taken away from him, it gives you a different outlook.”
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Another Mountaineer trying to knock off the rust is Derek Ambrosino.
The 6-foot-3, 215-pounder helped lead Wyoming Area High School to the Pennsylvania Class AAA state championship in 2019 and then joined West Virginia’s football program as a walk-on linebacker in the fall of 2020.
A medical situation forced Ambrosino to return to his West Pittson, Pennsylvania, home last fall, though. But he’s now healthy and has returned to WVU, rejoining the Mountaineer football team this spring.
Primarily a defensive end and tight end in high school, Ambrosino had 77 tackles, 10 tackles and 19 tackles for loss during his senior season at Wyoming Area, which is in northeast Pennsylvania between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.
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