Harvard Law graduate Daron Roberts, once the WVU outside receivers coach, is now the cornerbacks coach. (Aside: A while back I wrote this sentence: “Right now, I have no idea who is doing what on defense and, who knows, that conversation may soon expand to involve offense, too.” A lot of people took that wholly out of context and kind of accused me of making something out of nothing — through email and Twitter, of course. Um, this is what I was referring to … not that guys were going to be run off the offensive staff.)

The timing is perfect for Roberts. He knows the defensive side of the ball, or as he calls it, The Dark Side. He was there in his career-ladder capacity for four years in the NFL. Dana Holgorsen lost three guys  to Arizona in January and sought to balance out the coaching responsibilities on his 2012 staff — five on offense, five on defense, one on special teams — so moving Roberts from offense to defense, which then shifted Steve Dunlap to special teams, worked perfectly. It fit. And Roberts has a year of teaching and studying receivers on his mind as he teaches and studies cornerbacks.

Really, there’s no better way to tell someone how to stop someone else than having actually been that someone else before.

And then there’s this bit of serendipity: Jeremy Lin. Roberts has been paying close attention to what Lin has done in the NBA, and more importantly, how he’s done it. It’s something he’s sharing with his new cornerbacks and many of those players really will be new this season Two veterans, two guys who played a little and a bunch of walk-ons and freshmen. Someone has to get off the couch.

“I think his story is one that is very inspiring and I mentioned that to my guys the other day,” Roberts said. “He could have very easily decided that sleeping on the couch wasn’t for him and become an investment banker, but the game of basketball was important enough for him that he made those sacrifices and he kept pushing until he got his chance.”