Total Commitment
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Like everyone else, West Virginia University senior defensive tackle Keilen Dykes would like to see the Mountaineer defense get a little better this year. That’s not surprising. What might catch you off guard are his reasons.
“We’ve got Steve Slaton and Pat White and Darius (Reynaud) and they can put it into the end zone anytime. Fans want to see the offense out there as much as possible and I don’t blame them … I want to see them out there, too,” Dykes said.
West Virginia’s defense wasn’t awful in 2006, but the Mountaineers do need to strengthen some areas this fall – particularly against the pass where it ranked 109th out of 119 Division I programs giving up 243.3 yards per game.
That offset WVU’s stingy run defense that permitted only 93.3 yards per game to rank 13th in the country.
“We were ranked liked 62 (in total defense) and that’s just not going to get it done,” Dykes said. “That’s not going to get you where you want to go. We’ve got an explosive offense so defense has got to be a big part in doing what we’ve got to do to hopefully be playing on Jan. 8.”
Dykes believes the team is already on the path to getting there this summer.
“There is more commitment this year I think than last year,” he said. “I think that is going to help us out in the long run in the middle of the season. Guys are here and they’re working hard as always doing what they’ve got to do to help us win some games.
“Some guys might get better and some guys might stay the same. We won’t know until the end of this summer when we put the pads on,” he said. “The whole defense is here working hard so I expect the whole defense to improve.”
And while the defense – namely West Virginia’s young secondary -- has been called out frequently, Dykes says the burden falls on the entire defense.
“There are a lot of things we need to improve on from pass rushing, to tackles to the secondary doing what they’ve got to do,” he admitted. “It’s all-around team effort. It’s the overall defense and how we go about it.”
If there is a star on West Virginia’s defense it would certainly be Keilen Dykes. The 6-foot-4-inch, 300-pound senior earned first-team all-Big East honors last year as a junior by producing 32 tackles, 5 ½ tackles for losses and 3 sacks. Dykes, a legitimate NFL prospect, would like to see his sack totals increase this year.
“What guy wouldn’t like to get more sacks? But you’ve got to play within the scheme of the defense and you’ve got to do what you can do,” he said. “It all starts up front. If the front line is getting blown away or getting backed off the ball it’s all going to tumble down hill. We’ve got to do a better job of getting to the quarterback.”
Of course, not all was bad with the defense last year. Sometimes people get into comparing WVU’s defense to its top-ranked offense, which really isn’t fair.
“I thought we stopped the run pretty well. We played well at times in the second half. I thought we did some good things,” Dykes said.
“We’re out there playing against other teams that give out Division I scholarships, too,” he said. “We’re going to have some good games and we’re going to have some games when we struggle sometimes.”
Last year there was a little of both.
There were times when the defense did put together effective halves. After giving up 27 points to Pitt in the first two quarters of last year’s game in Pittsburgh, the Mountaineer defense completely shut down the Panthers in the second half. West Virginia had a similar effort against Georgia Tech in the fourth quarter of the last year’s Gator Bowl victory.
“We just have to do that all four quarters,” Dykes said. “Against Pitt they put 21 points on our defense (not counting the Darrelle Revis punt return) in the first half and the second half we shut them down. We’ve just got to do it consistently and once we get that going we’ll be all right.”
Dykes explains that it isn’t like the team hasn’t been working hard trying to correct the things that they didn’t do well last year.
“You’re in the locker room with the guys all the time so of course there are conversations about we did this wrong or we did that right. We always talk about the things we can do to get better, what we need, and what we don’t need,” Dykes said.
Heading into his final season at WVU, Dykes admits the years have flown by. Ironically, he says that’s not necessarily such a bad thing.
“It’s flying by so fast because we’ve been winning a lot. I don’t mind it flying by because if we were losing it would be a long, drawn out season,” he said. “It is flying by and that’s a credit to the coaching staff and the players they’re bringing in.”
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