Spells Signs With WVU
Put simply, the West Virginia Mountaineers have suffered a number of losses in the secondary over the past few years. As a result, heading into Spring, WVU retains only ten scholarship members of the secondary. They start five, so this leaves a razor-thin margin. As a result, Head Coach Neal Brown and staff have renewed their focus on this position group. They identified Jacolby Spells as a top target early. Spells committed early, and, now, things are official: Spells signs with WVU.
Lock-Down Corner
As we wrote when he first committed, Spells’ junior-season highlights deliver a punch. Spells rely on a combination of speed, awareness, and intelligence to lock down opposing receivers. We can even see a couple of plays from his film where Spells seems to break too early on a route and find himself out of position. In both situations, Spells recovers well. Indeed, we have all heard the adage, “a cornerback has to have a short memory.” While we often think of that operating from play to play, Spells takes that to a new level. He shakes off his early mistake to recover on both occasions, and that says a lot about the type of player he is.
Spells’ senior-season highlights show a more mature cornerback. He covers routes extremely well. Given the type of pressure the West Virginia staff likes to bring, he offers an “island” mentality that should give coaches comfort to leave him in man coverage to allow the rest of the defense to shift as needed. Spells also offers sound tackling. He certainly does not lack confidence.
Welcome to the Team
Fans will certainly welcome Spells’ ability to keep plays in front of him. Scouts have clearly recognized what he offers. Indeed, 247 Sports’ composite score assigns Spells a 4-star designation with an 0.9137 rating, good enough to earn him a top-250 designation.
In addition to his defensive prowess, Spells has also returned kickoffs in his college career. This should offer the Mountaineers another body to rotate on special teams. His talent will surely be welcome in the cornerback room, however, as West Virginia remains thin there. We welcome Spells to the team and look forward to seeing what he can do in the Old Gold and Blue.
