MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – I bet you didn’t know that West Virginia’s starting left tackle, Wyatt Milum, was once an aspiring Big Unit.
It’s true.
The Spring Valley High product used to toe the rubber just like Randy Johnson once did in the springtime before transforming into Lane Johnson during autumns.
Of the two Johnsons, though, the latter is the one his West Virginia coaches would prefer he emulate.
Milum came to WVU a year ago rated among the top high school offensive linemen in the country. His offer list included Alabama, Georgia and Florida State before he chose to stay in-state and commit to his home-state university.
“The relationship I built with coach (Neal) Brown and coach (Matt) Moore, and to be able to play for your home state, that’s really special,” Milum said last Saturday. “It felt like home here. They always took care of me and my family when I was here.”
Milum played 12 of 13 games during his true freshman season, starting eight at right tackle. His 628 snaps included a season-high 90 against Texas and he was awarded Offensive Lineman of the Game honors following West Virginia’s upset win against 22nd-ranked Iowa State.
The Football Writers and The Athletic named him to their Freshman All-America teams, which is not too shabby for an aspiring left-handed pitcher.
“He came in here as a true freshman last year and kind of played in and out early,” offensive line coach Matt Moore said earlier today. “He took over the starting job halfway through the year, but physically, he wasn’t where we wanted him to be.”
Milum took care of that during the offseason by boosting his weight from 295 last year to 311 this fall. He also moved from right tackle to left tackle last the spring to take advantage of his tremendous athleticism.
It also doesn’t hurt that he’s lefthanded.
“He does a phenomenal job with his hands,” Moore explained. “He’s got a baseball background, so he’s got really good hand-eye coordination. He’s got a great motor, and he plays really, really hard.”
Milum said the only difference between the two tackle positions is knowing which leg to kick first.
“I never played on the left side before so just learning the kick step in pass pro has been the only difficult thing, really,” he said.
Milum has already faced some pretty stout defensive fronts during his young college career, going up against the likes of Baylor, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
Now, he’s about to get another big challenge on Thursday, Sept. 1 when West Virginia opens the season at Pitt. The Panthers boast the nation’s second-best defensive line, according to college football expert Phil Steele.
He has Pitt’s two inside guys, Calijah Kancey and Devin Danielson, ranked among his top 87 defensive tackles and both edge guys rated among his top 59, one of whom is No. 11 defensive end Habakkuk Baldonado.
Moore believes Milum and the other four starters up front are going to be in for one of their biggest challenges protecting West Virginia’s quarterbacks against Pitt’s blitzing schemes. Moore said he has been reminding them how good Pitt’s front four is since the beginning of the summer.
“They’re really good up front,” he noted. “All of my guys are going to have to play their A-game to stay in the stadium with those guys. They play really, really hard, their linebackers are down-hill players and their defensive coordinator (Randy Bates) does a great job of blitzing the run. He loves to get people in third and long and then he’s got all kinds of crazy blitzes out of third and long.”
For Milum, who was used to blocking about five or six passes a game when he was in high school, keeping Pitt’s pass rushers off of WVU’s quarterbacks is going to be stern test.
Moore said it will be important for all of them to play fundamentally sound football against the Panthers.
“We talked about it again today. I told them, ‘You are going to be going up against some of the best people you are going to face all year, or maybe even your whole career, and we’ve got to be ready to go,'” he explained. “We can’t make mental mistakes and we can’t put our eyes in the wrong spot. We can’t overset and we can’t get our hands outside.”
Milum is expected to be one of three state natives on this year’s starting offensive line, joining fellow Spring Valley product Doug Nester at right guard and Fairmont Senior High center Zach Frazier.
It’s the first time West Virginia is opening the season with three West Virginians on its starting offensive line since 1995 when Moorefield’s Bryan Washington, Oak Glen’s Joe DeLong and Man’s Buddy Hager did it against Purdue.
Since then, WVU has had a pair of state natives open the season as starters on the offensive line three different times, most recently in 2005 against Syracuse when Grafton’s Travis Garrett started at right tackle and Gilbert’s Garin Justice started at left tackle.
“It’s amazing,” Milum admitted. “West Virginia high school football doesn’t really get recognized the way that it should because there is good football here in the state, and it’s very exciting to see people from this state playing.”
West Virginia concluded its second straight practice in full pads in the stadium earlier today. No on-field activities are planned for tomorrow and the team will have a light workout on Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s second intrasquad scrimmage.
“I thought the defense was dominant early,” coach Neal Brown said of today’s practice. “You go through practice and there are things you want to work on and I thought the defense really executed well early. We tackled in the tackle sessions better than we have at this point.”
“We made some decisions at the quarterback position that weren’t the best, but the good thing offensively is we regrouped and came back in the red zone period and a two-minute period and finished strong, which was a positive,” he added. “In camp, you are going to have ups and downs but you’ve got to be able to stack (good plays together) and you’ve got to eliminate negative plays.”
The coach indicated last Saturday that most of the position battles will be determined after the second scrimmage as the team begins turning its full attention to the Panthers.
The first day of classes for the fall semester is Wednesday.
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