MORGANTOWN — West Virginia came into spring practice with an empty vault as far as its receiving room went.

The top four receivers from last year’s team –Sam James, Bryce Ford-Wheaton, Kaden Prather and Reese Smith — were gone and with them went 176 receptions, 2,126 of their 2,730 passing yards and 17 of their passing touchdowns.

With that in mind, they reached out and grabbed veteran receiver Devin Carter from North Carolina State, a 6-4 wide out who had 1,096 career receiving yards and 10 TDs with the Wolfpack.

Through three practices, he has looked like might fill that huge void.

When asked who among the receivers had stood out to date, Brown pointed to returning wideout Preston Fox but was strong in his praise of what Carter seems ready to bring to the program.

“He’s delivered so far,” Brown said. “We lost a lot of production. Sam James over his time here was really, really productive and wound up high among reception leaders and Bryce increased his production each year.

“We brought Devin in and felt he could be a 1 and in three practices he’s made some big-time plays.”

Brown was echoing the praise that was heaped upon Carter new wide receivers coach Bilal Marshall on Saturday.

“He brings a lot of experience. He’s been a four-year starter. He’s going to be a leader on this offense,” Marshall said. “He’s very vocal, great personality. Guys gravitate to him. He’s a good person. His mother is from West Virginia, so it’s a homecoming for him.

“As far as his skill set, he’s a big receiver who is able to go up, make contested catches, be a third down threat. There’s some things we have to fix with his game, but he’s willing to live and learn. He wants to learn; takes notes on everything,” Marshall continued.

“He’s going to be a big-time player for us. We didn’t bring him in to be a backup.”

—

Former WVU quarterback Rasheed Marshall has joined Coach Neal Brown’s staff in an administrating role, being named director of player relations.

Marshall introduced the dual threat quarterback that was perfected by Pat White in coach Rich Rodriguez’s offense and has stayed close to the program over the years while working on physical training in Pittsburgh over the years.

“He expressed an interest and we had an opening,” Brown said. “I’m glad it worked out.”

The job is as a liaison between the players and the staff.

“He’s here for the players,” Brown said.

—

This past weekend we wrote about WVU assistant coaches Blaine Stewart and Bilal Marshall coming to the Mountaineers from different directions.

But there was more.

Stewart, of course, was a coach’s son, his dad being Bill Stewart, the former WVU head coach.

Marshall, however, once he finished his playing career as a wide receiver at Purdue wasn’t sure what direction his life would take and told the story of how he got into coaching this past Saturday.

“I’ll take you back to 2016 when I was playing my last year at Purdue. I had this tweet on my phone — Gerad Parker was the interim head coach my senior year and played for him — there was a quote that popped up on my Twitter when someone tagged me and it was like, “Bilal Marshall has to coach when he’s done playing,” he began.

To this day, seven years later, Marshall has a screenshot of that tweet on his phone.

He went and played a bit in Canada but came home to Miami, where his present wife and high school sweetheart was living.

“I had to figure out what life was,” he admitted. “I started selling floors — literally. Things like carpet, wood and tile. That’s what I was doing. I was running all over south Florida and I was doing really well. I moved up to sales manager at 24.

“In 2018, I went to visit Gerad while he was at Duke with three other seniors who graduated with me. We had a boys’ weekend and we hung out and Gerad said he wanted us to work out with some of his players, show them some of the stuff we used to teach,” he continued.

“He wanted us to run routes and do drills. I said, ‘Coach, I haven’t run a route in two years.’ We got out there and just had fun with these guys and it was fun. I don’t know, something just started itching. So, I gave him a call and said ‘I think I want to coach’ and he said, ‘It’s about damn time.'”

And so it began. In 2019 he coached at Chaminade Catholic in Miami and won the state title. Meanwhile, Gerad came to WVU as an assistant coach and then offensive coordinator and Marshall joined him as a graduate assistant.

—

Adam “Pacman” Jones is the perfect example of why you shouldn’t be judging people too early in life.

He came out of Atlanta to become an All-American defensive back at WVU, had his share of troubles that emerged from immaturity and a tough background, was a first-round draft pick, an All-Pro player and the troubles followed him there.

Eventually, he figured life out and on Saturday he was at WVU with Chris Henry Jr., the son of his former WVU teammate at WVU. Henry, like Jones, had a lot to work through and died far too early after his life was claimed in an accident, falling out of the back of a moving pickup truck in 2009.

Young Henry Jr. is one of the top prospects in the 2026 recruiting class.

Twelve years after Henry’s death, Jones adopted his two sons, having been involved in their life as they grew up, and Chris Jr. has become a hotly recruited college prospect, working out over the weekend at WVU.

During his time here, the coaching staff asked Jones to address WVU’s players during spring practice.

Here’s what he told them as seen on a video posted on social media:

“This blue and gold, I don’t know if y’all know, this means something,” Jones began. “This means something to all the guys that played before y’all.

“Love what you do,” he continued. “And do what you love. Everybody ain’t going to make the league, everybody ain’t going to get the glitz and glamor. As a group, love what you do, do what you love.

“There’s no excuses you all have not to be the best. Work together as a team. Y’all go something special here, but it’s got to be all in one. Everybody got to pull the rope.”

That’s advice that you can take in the locker room and beyond.