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Aug 6, 2024 By Bob Hertzel 5 min read

MORGANTOWN – If you are to believe the preseason previews of West Virginia’s football team, you would believe that their defense is going to be as strong as their cornerbacks allow them to be.

If there is a perceived weakness, it is at that position, where last year’s starters are gone and their potential replacements are household names only within their own households.

But, just think back to this time a year ago.

WVU was going to depend on a guy named Beanie Bishop to start at corner, a smaller guy who shared corner at Minnesota previously, a kid whose nickname was more memorable than his college career to that point.

One year later, he’s pushing for a spot on the Pittsburgh Steelers roster, the title of consensus All-American attached to his name.

Like they say, what a difference a year makes.

ShaDon Brown, the Mountaineer’s co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach, remembers the unheralded kid that came in before last season and the heralded one who left with everyone singing his praises.

It was night and day.

“Oh, gosh,” Brown gushed when asked about it. “Beanie couldn’t play the ball for his life when he first got here. He had 10 pass breakups in four years.”

All he did was wind up leading the Mountaineers in interceptions with 4 and leading the nation in pass breakups with 21.

“His struggle was he was a guy who wanted to always go back to the ball and shoulder the ball where he saw everything from the front,” Brown said. “But you’ve got to be able to play the ball over the top, just like a receiver catching the ball on the run. He has to turn his pads to the ball all the time, we’ll break those up.”

Now, with Bishop gone, Brown is trying to work his coaching magic with a new group with Garnett Hollis Jr., a Northwestern transfer, on one side and Ayden Garnes, a Duquesne transfer on the other side, at least right now with the competition still going on.

So what secret formula did Brown use to raise Bishop’s game as he did and can he use it with this year’s group?

“I don’t want to give away my secrets,” Brown said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t answer that, but I will say what we teach that is different from what most people teach is we teach to play through the receiver to the ball.

“A lot of people teach to look back for the ball all the time. We teach body position when you can and when you cannot look back. That’s been by trial and error. I’ve been coaching the secondary for 17 years and had 18 NFL players who played in the secondary.

“It’s something they have to get used to. They have to learn to play with their back to the basket, so to speak. You hear that in basketball. This is the same because the ball is coming behind you. If you always try to turn your body to the ball, that’s when you get pushed and nudged and sometimes the guys who get paid to throw flags don’t throw them on offense but throw them on the defense.”

It obviously worked with Bishop and still is working with him in Pittsburgh.

“You go to Steelers practice and Beanie Bishop right now is breaking up passes,” Brown said. “He’s a Steeler. He fits that blue collar mentality. He fits Mike Tomlin. He will always be doing more than what’s required. He’s a guy who has always overachieved and that underdog mentality he has embraced. He doesn’t want to be on top. He wants to be fighting from the bottom to get there.

“He’ll make their 53 and he’ll make plays for them. It’s a shame they didn’t draft him, but they will pay him at some point.”

Bishop is a different kind of corner than Hollis and Garnes, who are long and fast. But like Bishop, they have a lot to learn before they are turned loose.

“He’s playing really well. I don’t know if they’ve caught a ball on him in five practices. He plays the ball in the deep part of the field really well, and that’s an area where he has to get really better,” Brown said. “At Duquesne he could play with his eyes in the backfield and still be first team all-league but you can’t do that at this level. So he’s had to work on that.

“You look at his stature, he’s 6-foot, 179 pounds. He was 163 when he arrived in January, but he is one of the strongest pound-for-pound guys in the DB room. You look at him and think he’s a lean, muscle-mass kid, but he’s really strong and plays like it. He has a chance to be a plus player in this league.”