Who is in the lead this spring to replace center Joe Madsen?

Yes, it’s early. But it's a high priorty to find a center this spring, Dana Holgorsen said on Tuesday. (Read more in Today's story)

Holgorsen spoke highly of Tyler Orlosky and reported that senior Pat Eger, who would be converted from tackle, is struggling with consistency of his snaps.

You might remember both Holgorsen and former OL Coach Bill Bedenbaugh raved about Orlosky last August. 

Of course all bets could be off when junior college transfer Stone Underwood, a 6-foot-4, 290-pound center, arrives in August when the competetion will open back up.

Holgorsenon the subject:

“We need to find one. We have Stone (Underwood) ... but you don't want to rely on a junior-college guy who hasn't taken a college snap before August 1 on being your guy," said Holgorsen. "Tyler Orlosky looks good. He can move, he's smart, he's confident. Pat is a smart guy, but his snaps are all over the place right now.

"That's high priority when it comes to figure out who our best one is right now and then open that up [during preseason] to see who the best one is and who the second best one is."

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- It was a cold one at Mountaineer Field today as spring football practice No. 2 went off.

Only 30 minutes of practice was open to the media, so you can imagine the limited information there is to pass on.

Generally, the most notable thing was how many new faces and numbers there are to learn of players who are likely to see key minutes come fall.

Certainly every football team, every year goes through this to a point, but it was fairly striking here this time around.

That likely has a lot to do with the competition at so many skill positions on offense and the fact there are four new assistant coaches in the mix as well.

Practice notes: The quarterbacks split away with OC Shannon Dawson, and all four – Paul Millard, Ford Childress, Chavas Rawlins, and Logan Moore - hit some targets and missed others during throwing/footwork drills. …Players still had no pads on, so drills were limited. …Kicker Josh Lambert, a redshirt last season, took most of the field goal attempts, and Mike Molinari served as the holder. …Jared Barber was in a blue jersey and practiced during the media portion with his teammates.

Spring football opened today at West Virginia, and the Mountaineers have a lot of work to do.

The spring season will be spread over six weeks, culminating with the:

• Blue-Gold spring game: April 20 at 2 p.m.

***

Key storylines:

1. Replacing star power, and rebuilding the offense

Gone is Geno Smith, Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey – the team’s most prolific quarterback in history and a pair of all-American level receivers.

Finding Smith’s replacement takes the lead as the most compelling storyline of the spring. Will it be backup Paul Millard, the only candidate with live game experience? Or will Ford Childress, the redshirt freshman once considered a pretty hot prospect take the lead by the end of spring ball? Throw in true freshman Chavas Rawlins who is considered a dual threat QB and things get interesting. Transfer Logan Moore adds some depth to help the competition.

At WR it's wide open. The team’s most productive returning receiver is actually a running back (Andrew Buie) so look for lots of new names and faces to be mentioned this spring.

And it all starts up front where the interior portion of the offensive line will need to be replaced. Pat Eger is expected to convert to center but won’t be at full go through spring after ankle surgery in the offseason.

2. A new staff coming together

It’s been played down in Morgantown, but Dana Holgorsen has one assistant left from his first season here, and that’s offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson. He’s had to replace an outgoing quarterbacks coach, offensive line coach and running backs coach fairly late in the offseason after he let two coaches go.

The hires he brought in seem to be strong replacements on paper, but of course only time will tell how this group gets together.

3. Defensive growth

Keith Patterson talked a lot this week about building a new culture on the team, and his first spring as defensive coordinator will be an important time for this group.

He returns most of the defensive line and some young breakout talent last year in LB Isaiah Bruce and S Karl Joseph. But this group had problems everywhere in the 2012 season, and Patterson has his work cut out for him.

***

The good news

1. The running game shouldn’t miss too much of a beat this year, so that will give the offense some added ways to move the ball with the return of RBs Andrew Buie and Dustin Garrison.

Junior college transfer Dreamius Smith will debut with the team this spring and he has some size that Buie and Garrison don’t at 215 pounds.

2. Holgorsen has proven ability at building an offense even in seasons when there was no clear-cut quarterback to start spring. Consider 2008 at Houston, when Case Keenum eventually emerged.

JaJuan Seider will be the next running backs coach at West Virginia.

Coach Dana Holgorsen confirmed the hire on his twitter page tonight.

The tweet from @Holgorsendana read: Welcome Home WVU grad JaJaun Seider as WVU RB Coach. The T.E.A.M. is finally ready for Sunday's Spring FB #1.

The University later announced the hire in a press release, and included statement's from both Holgorsen and Seider.

Holgorsen: "It’s great to welcome JaJuan back to Mountaineer football. He is an energetic coach and recruiter, who knows our program and state very well. His coaching versatility and background will be an asset to our program, and I know he will bring a passion to succeed at his alma mater.”     

Seider: “I am very thankful to Coach Holgorsen for having the vision, trust and confidence to take a chance on a young coach like me. My family and I are excited to be coming back to Morgantown."