Josh Francis is the latest junior college All-American to detour to West Virginia’s defense and — stop me if you’ve heard this — looks like the kind of guy who is going to matter immediately. Francis is a linebacker who looks like a linebacker and moves like a skill position player. More often than not, that combination finds him with his facemask near the football.

Almost all of the focus through six spring practices has been on offense, but Francis is the guy who has opened eyes on defense and forced peers to say things like this:

“Josh has great athleticism, head to toe, and he’s so fast. The guy’s a flying bullet,” said WVU strongside starter Najae Goode, the experienced veteran (13 career starts) among a young Mountaineer unit. “This defense is a little different to learn, but the stuff we build on every day, he’s already a lot better.

“The big thing is that Josh’s 50 percent is 100 percent for everybody else, kind of like that.”

Why, imagine if Francis finds a way to give it 110 percent on 100 percent of his snaps! Many did and Francis, originally from Maryland’s Damascus High, had to decide in the end if WVU was a better fit than North Carolina and Arkansas (he also had looks from, among others, Oregon and USC). The Mountaineers prevailed and can thank a divine intervention.

“Coach Casteel, he actually coached my pastor, Clark Baisden (of Difference Makers Church, a Wesleyan congregation) when he was in college back at Shepherd,” Francis said. “That was a big upside for me.”

Baisden, who also is an assistant football coach at Damascus High, played in the secondary for Shepherd in the late ’80s, when Casteel was an assistant there. Baisden is a Buckhannon native, Casteel said.