MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Junior
Marcis Floyd is one of the leading contenders to take over the cat safety position
Sean Mahone handled last year.
Interestingly enough, he was brought here from Murray State to play cornerback, similar to what
Charles Woods did last year in transferring from Illinois State before last season.
So far, Floyd said the transition has gone smoothly.
"I've had a lot of guys helping me," he said after this morning's practice. "I had a lot of extra film study and a lot of extra coaching since I came in to try and get to know the playbook a little bit better."
Counting Floyd and Woods, there could be as many as four former FCS players in West Virginia's secondary at one time with North Dakota State's
Jasir Cox manning the nickel position and James Madison transfer
Wesley McCormick playing cornerback.
Floyd said there are plenty of good football players at the FCS level who have been overlooked for one reason or another.
"Maybe we got overlooked or didn't have the offers coming out," Floyd explained. "Coming out of high school, I didn't go to too many camps so my coach at Murray State came to one of my games and offered me right after the game and that was like the only offer I had."
That makes Floyd another guy wearing gold and blue with a big chip on his shoulder.
"I always have had a chip-on-my-shoulder mentality, just because of where I am," he explained. "You are going to be doubted no matter what you do, no matter where you are at, so you've just got to keep that chip on your shoulder."
The 6-foot, 194-pounder played 27 games during his three seasons at Murray State, which included basically two seasons in one following the COVID year in 2020. FCS football was canceled during the fall of 2020, meaning games were delayed until the spring before resuming a normal fall schedule last year.
That meant he played 23 college football games in a span of about six months.
"It was kind of a weird transition because going into the COVID year we kind of had two offseasons and then going to playing two seasons," he noted. "I liked it because we played more games and got to showcase our talents more."
He said what those rapid-fire years taught him was how to better take care of his body.
In 2021, he started 11 games at cornerback for the Racers, earning All-Ohio Valley Conference honors for a second straight season after accumulating 40 tackles, nine pass breakups, four tackles for loss, three sacks and two interceptions, both coming against Tennessee Tech. One of those picks went for a 90-yard touchdown versus the Golden Eagles.
After the season, the Louisville resident wanted to see how he could fare at the Power 5 level and made a commitment to West Virginia right before Christmas.
"Talking to the coaches, it just felt like the right move to me," he explained. "They're trying to start something new here and bringing in a lot of transfers and this was an opportunity to play at the highest level and kind of lead the younger guys here."
Floyd admitted the biggest difference between Murray State and West Virginia is the number of new names he's had to learn.
"Everybody has been useful and everybody is here to help you. There are a lot more of them here than there are at Murray State. A lot more names to learn, but also a lot more people you can appreciate," he said.
Floyd, who recently turned 22, will have two seasons of eligibility remaining with West Virginia. He said the defense has been easy for him to pick up because Murray State played a similar scheme in the secondary, although the calls are different.
"It's more verbiage than it is technique," he explained. The biggest difference is telling the other guys what to do.
"At corner, you just listen to what the safety says and now at safety, it's like I'm the quarterback of the (secondary), so I have to tell those guys what to do now," he said. "I like controlling the defense."
Floyd said the best piece of football advice he's gotten is to have the memory of a goldfish.
"If you mess up one play, you've got to get that out of your mind and go back to the next play," he said.
Briefly:
*
Tony Caridi passed along to me the sad news that Grant Wiley's father, Jim Wiley, passed away last weekend after a lengthy illness. Grant was a consensus All-American linebacker playing in
Jeff Casteel's Mountaineer defense in 2003.
Grant will forever be known for his goal line hit on Lee Suggs that helped preserve West Virginia's 21-18 win at 13
th-ranked Virginia Tech in 2002.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Grant and his mother, Lynne.
* Today's practice was in shorts and helmets ahead of the team's first scrimmage of camp on Thursday morning. Practice was interrupted after some situational work midway through the practice when lightning was spotted in the area and forced the team to move into the Caperton Indoor Practice Facility.
Only team punt was affected by the move inside.
"We didn't have a choice," coach
Neal Brown said. "We'd rather be outside. We were working red zone so it wasn't that big of a deal. The only thing we missed was our punt period because we can't punt in here because it's too low."
* During one-on-one coverage drills, the cornerbacks wore boxing gloves and pads so they couldn't grab the jerseys of the wide receivers. Brown said the corners today "wore out" the wide receivers.
"That's the best the corners have played. They competed for space, they competed for balls but the DBs, in general, won the perimeter battle," he said.
Near the end of practice during the two-minute drill,
Charles Woods out-battled sophomore
Kaden Prather for a 50-50 ball in the corner of the end zone for an interception.
Freshman
Andrew Wilson-Lamp also came up with an interception and long return when he alertly snatched a bobbled pass out of the air.
* During one quarterback accuracy drill where the quarterbacks are required to throw the football into specific targets in a net, the top four quarterbacks were pretty accurate with their throws. Freshman
Nicco Marchiol hit two out of his three tosses, which is not easy to do considering the size of the target they have to hit.
* During the sudden change period, the practice field sound system plays a fire engine siren, which is loud enough to be heard throughout Suncrest. It almost makes you wonder if people in the neighborhood are hopping on their scanners to see where the fire is located.
Speaking of the sound system, Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" was pretty pleasing to this guy's ears this morning.
* Continuing my theme of Mountaineer football players reincarnated … I mentioned
Bryce Ford-Wheaton physically resembling former WVU standout Jerry Porter and
Preston Fox looking like the second coming of John Pennington. Well, I had to do a double take today when I saw
Wesley McCormick running around in front of me. I thought I was watching Gary Thompkins, right down to the same No. 11.
I'm either getting old, senile or both.
* Finally, Brown said tomorrow's scrimmage will be treated like a game with coaches on the headsets up in the press box.
"There are certain positions we want to evaluate," he said. "I want to see how we operate offensively and defensively and how do we play situational football with a Big 12 officiating crew here?
"And then, there are certain guys we want to see if they're ready to play on offense, defense and special teams. We've got a set number of plays we want to see with the ones, twos, threes and fours and a certain number of live special teams reps, too."
