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Gibson likes new look of WVU defense

MORGANTOWN — As if replacing nine starters is hard enough, veteran West Virginia University defensive coordinator Tony Gibson and his staff are faced with the dilemma of preparing for a Missouri Tiger offense which will be led by a completely new offensive staff.

“It’s different,” Gibson said during last week’s media session. “The biggest thing with these guys is they have coaches from Baylor. A guy that was on the Baylor’s staff a year ago. They have coaches from Oklahoma.

“You know Josh (Heupel) has been to Utah State now so you’re trying to watch a lot of different things. You get kind of anxious to get rolling into it. It’s overwhelming at times trying to watch four or five different schools.”

Fortunately, Heupel and his staff have had only one spring and one Fall camp to try and fit the pieces together that can turn a Missouri offense that averaged a measly 13.6 points per game in 2015 into one that can match points with a Mountaineer attack unit which averaged 35 points per outing and ended the campaign by putting up 43 points and more than 700 yards of total offense against the PAC 12’s Arizona State in the Cactus Bowl.

“Right now, it’s basically just kind of honing in on what we’re doing and what we can do well,” continued Gibson. “What we feel we do well as a staff and kind of get prepared that way instead of worrying about everything they’re going to throw at us. There is going to be a lot of in-game adjustments once we figure out what they are doing and just kind of go from there with it.”

Of course the problems faced by Gibson and his assistants are no different than those Heupel and his staff must overcome as the Tigers will face a WVU defense that runs a unique 3-3-5 alignment and blitzes on nearly every down.

“The biggest thing I see with these kids right now is they are hungry and eager. They want to be good and they’re preparing themselves to go out and practice. Preparing for game-like situations and I’m excited about where they are at right now. We go out in two weeks or 12 days from now and see when the lights come on for real, let’s see how they react at that point.”

And, while expecting starting quarterback Drew Lock connected on 129-of-263 attempts for 1,332 yards and four touchdowns for the Tigers a year ago, he was also dropped for 160 yards in total yards meaning WVU’s front eight will have multiple opportunities to put the visitors in long yardage situations or force turnovers – two things the unit have been doing regularly during Fall Camp.

Making matters worse for Heupel and his staff is a running attack which averaged only 115.4 yards per game and returns only one running back, Ish Witter, who rushed for more than 500 yards. To address that issue Missouri brought in former-Oklahoma running back Alex Ross. The fifth-year transfer rushed for 585 yards and four touchdowns for the Sooners in 2014. He also returned two kickoffs for scores, one coming against West Virginia.

“It really doesn’t matter what they throw at us,” added Gibson. “What matters is how we prepare ourselves. We know that we are going to have to make adjustments during the game. The kids know that they have to be ready for anything. We will probably play very basic defense to start and then see what works and what doesn’t work during the game.”

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