MORGANTOWN — The wisdom being spouted on the streets, in the bar rooms, and on social media across West Virginia is that the Mountaineers will go as far this season as their offense can take them.
A surface glance would make one believe that to be true, as they return the heart and the soul of the offense, are talented at the skill positions and deep at running backs who work behind an experienced offensive line.
But the truth is that West Virginia will go as far as its defense takes it and the defense will go as far as Aubrey Burks takes it.
The defense is the question mark coming into the season. It made huge gains last year and expects this year to take a step up to the championship level, but Burks is almost certainly the key to its success, moving from safety into a dual role of safety and Spear, a hybrid position that seems to have been invented for this senior’s skill set, which is not only as a hard-hitting safety but one who also can blitz and rush the passer.
When speaking about him last week, coach Neal Brown put it this way:
“He’s got a knack for being slippery — I don’t know what you’d call it. He slips and slides and dips underneath blocks and he’s what you’d call a savvy football player.”
That references not only his athletic skills, which included starting 12 games last season and finishing with 47 tackles, 39 of them solo stops, 3.5 for a loss, and one sack while breaking up four passes, intercepting two, forcing a fumble and recovering one.
He capped it all off in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl victory over North Carolina with four tackles, three of them solo, and an interception.
But the reference to being savvy touches on his intelligence and comes off as an unmatched work ethic and instincts to be in the right place at the right time, no matter what the X’s and O’s say.
Moving from safety to Spear gets him closer to the line of scrimmage, which allows him to have a part in more plays and to be able to influence down and distance more often and more dramatically.
As good as Burks is on the field, his ability to understand the off-the-field team building may be even more important.
“We knew that we were going to have almost a new secondary,” Burks said this week. “So, during the summer, we were going out bowling and small things like that. In our position meetings, we go around and kind of just say something about our lives. … If I know something personal about my teammate, when we go out on the field, I’ll have his back because I know what he’s going through. Then if he knows something about me, he’s going to play hard and we’re going to play hard for each other.”
It isn’t really like second-grade show and tell. This has football meaning, Burks explains.
“Obviously, when you get on the field you’ve got to talk and communicate, but you don’t want to wait until fall camp to try and do that. You want to do that way back in the summer so when we get to fall camp, it feels like it’s nothing new.”
He understands the value of communication, from coach to player and player to player. In fact, his communication with his former coach at safety Dontae Wright, who left after last season to return to Troy, has carried over with new position coach Tre’ Bell.
“Every Thursday and Sunday, me and Coach Bell meet, so this past Sunday I went in and met with him,” Burks said. “Coach Wright’s gone, he moved on, and so Coach Bell is the new guy who’s been helping me out.”
He understands that he, as a senior, still needs guidance and that younger players do even more so.
He had become the unofficial “captain” of the secondary. a role he is well suited for. He is vibrant and dedicated, able to communicate with the younger players.
“I told the young guys going through the next two weeks, to stop worrying about making plays. Obviously, you make plays, they will see that, but the coaches right now, when you’re young, it’s about being consistent. How you come in every day, just consistent every day,” Burks said. “They don’t want you to be up and then you take a major drop. They don’t know what they’re getting out of you. Just from a young player, it’s about being consistent every day.
“If the coaches don’t trust you, they can’t put you out there, no matter how many plays I make,” Burks continued. “I can go out in practice and make three interceptions but if I have three (missed assignments), that doesn’t balance right. So, just knowing what you’re doing, that’s the most important thing.”
And that’s why, even though he’s a preseason All-Big 12 selection, he’s approaching his position change like a freshman.
“I feel like as we keep going through camp and Week One gets here, I’ll be real comfortable at Spear or cat safety,” he said.
And personal goals are no longer part of his self-appraisal process.
“As long as we take care of the business on the field and win, I feel like every individual success that each of us wants on this team will all play a part, and it’ll all come together if we all work together during the season,” Burks said.
That’s why the talk is not focusing on the Penn State opener.
“We’re talking about camp right now,” Burks said. “That’s the only thing that should be on our minds. It’s the only thing that should be on my mind is camp. Penn State will get here when they get here. I don’t like looking ahead too much because I can get carried away if I think about Pitt or Penn State, I’m not worried about what we got for tomorrow’s scrimmage, so just handle it week by week and when Penn State or Pitt gets here, we know what kind of week that is.”
