MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Bill Stewart said he wanted more blitzing from his defense this spring. On Saturday, defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel brought the heat.

	Linebacker J.T. Thomas finished Saturday's scrimmage with four sacks, an interception and a tackle for a loss. All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo

The Mountaineer defense recorded five sacks and produced two turnovers during Saturday’s 63-play scrimmage at Milan Puskar Stadium.

Linebacker J.T. Thomas had four of those sacks to go with an interception and a tackle for a loss. Redshirt freshman Donovan Miles had the other sack.

“We’ve got a couple of older guys at linebacker and we can move around a lot more than the younger guys to try and confuse the offensive linemen who are pretty young,” Thomas said. “Maybe last year with the veteran guys they knew where we were going.”

West Virginia’s young offensive line had trouble picking up blitzers, but quarterback Jarrett Brown believes that will only be a good teaching tool when the team watches the tape of Saturday’s scrimmage Sunday.

“They ran a couple of different things and gave us a couple of different looks,” Brown said. “I know J.T. was saying something in the locker room, ‘We’ve got something for you all today.’ I think it’s something we’ve got to look at this spring.”

Brown struggled throwing the football today, completing just 3 of 13 passes for 33 yards with the first group. Late in the scrimmage, Brown put together a nice drive from the 35 that ended with a 3-yard touchdown pass to Noel Devine coming out of the backfield.

Devine accounted for both touchdowns, his other coming on a nifty 65-yard run when he eluded Keith Tandy along the sideline and made a pretty cutback against the grain to outrun the rest of the defense.

Devine finished the scrimmage carrying six times for 97 yards.

Coley White quarterbacked the second offense and finished the scrimmage completing 5 of 8 passes for 40 yards. Mark Rodgers got most of the carries with the second group and he finished the afternoon with 21 yards on 10 attempts.

Backup kicker Keith Coffindaffer successfully converted a 27-yard field goal. Regular kicker Tyler Bitancurt did not kick today and Stewart opted not to perform live kickoffs before today’s scrimmage.

“I fired every kicker today,” Stewart said. “They are not tough enough – they have to figure out how to fight through pain. Our kicking, field goal-wise, was not good. I’m not pleased with that and I thought that would get better.”

Perhaps the best news offensively is that it appears the Mountaineers may have found a short yardage back. Ryan Clarke scored three times during goal line scrimmaging on runs of 5, 4 and 1 yards. Thomas said Clarke is a load to bring down.

“He’s a tough kid and he should help us out on third down and short,” Thomas said. “A lot of guys don’t want to tackle him too much. He’s a big guy and he’s a lot quicker than people realize. He has a knack for getting the extra yard and getting the first down.”

“He’s going to cause some problems for defenses,” added Brown.

Overall, Stewart gave the nod to the defense for today’s scrimmage.

“The defense absolutely dominated from the 2-yard line and I thought they did a tremendous job of getting off the field,” he said.

One other offensive touchdown was erased when Noel Devine’s 15-yard touchdown run was called back because of holding.

West Virginia will lift on Sunday and will resume practice Monday morning at 6 a.m. The team will have another 6 a.m. practice Tuesday morning before its second big scrimmage of the spring next Wednesday.

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