MORGANTOWN —
When West Virginia University’s football team went into camp, redshirt sophomore receiver J.D. Woods carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“If he doesn’t start, it’s his fault,” receivers coach Lonnie Galloway said of Woods. “It’s going to be a big, big fall for him. If he succeeds, he has a chance.”
Mission accomplished.
When the Mountaineers go to their four-receiver set, used in most situations, Woods will be there on the outside along with slots Jock Sanders of St. Petersburg and Tavon Austin of Baltimore with Miami Miramar’s Steadman Bailey on the other side.
Woods says he couldn’t have done it without the encouragement from what they have come to call “the 2-3-9 gang”, which is the players who come from the Fort Myers area of Florida — himself, Noel Devine and redshirt freshman cornerback Brodrick Jenkins.
“Noel is like a big brother to me. I look up to him every day. He brought Fort Myers and Naples up to Morgantown,” said Woods.
And then there was his family helping him to adjust, even though they weren’t around.
“I’m used to my family being in the stands and watching me play. I carry them with me every time I go on the field, and that’s how I approach the game. They are with me all the time,” he said.
When Woods first arrived at West Virginia University, it didn’t hit him just how different the rolling hills and green mountains of the state were from the flat, sandy West Coast of Florida.
It didn’t take long, however, for him to understand just how different it really is.
“Law School Hill will welcome you to college football,” the redshirt sophomore out of Naples’ Golden Gate High said the other day, less than two weeks before he makes what could be his first start as WVU wide receiver.
For the uninitiated, Milan Puskar Stadium is built in something of a valley and overlooked by the WVU School of Law, with a steep, grassy incline from bottom to top. There are more than 200 steps in a stairway built there not many years ago and they are hard enough to climb, let alone running up and down the hill for conditioning, as the Mountaineers far too often do.
“I’d never run up a hill before, but now I love the mountains,” he said.
In some ways that hill is symbolic of the uphill climb so many kids like Woods face. For every “can’t miss” like Devine, there is a Woods, a high school talent who has to be honed into a player.
They do it sometimes against all odds, for they are off in this distant, different land of West Virginia, brought together by their roots in Florida.
“It’s like home,” Woods said of having Devine of North Fort Myers High and Jenkins of South Fort Myers High, a defensive back who is pushing hard to win the starting job at cornerback, around to form the “2-3-9 gang.”
“We say it all day — ‘2-3-9.’ That’s our area code. We all went to different schools back home, but up here we’re all the same. We’re all family.”
Certainly, WVU has long been as desirable a destination for Florida’s teens looking to play college football as Florida’s beaches have been for the West Virginia teens who desire a tan over spring break.
The list is nearly endless of Florida recruits, and this year’s team is no different, with just one school, Miramar in Miami, producing five players on the roster.
“There are high standards coming from Florida,” Woods admitted. “You have to live up to those standards. You have to play hard.”
Woods is surely meeting those standards. After a redshirt freshman year and then a second season in which he saw action on less than 30 plays, he seems to have arrived.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
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