West Virginia’s pass rush was anything but a Legion of Doom last fall, and maybe that was to be expected. Not the depth of the struggle, but the fact it was an issue.

The 3-3-5 is unique and createa obstacles you must learn to overcome. The coaching wasn’t synced up like Tony Gibson wanted. Everyone needed time, but the season doesn’t make time for such situations.

It should be better, if for no other reason than it be hard to be much lower in the final national rankings.

But there’s more to it than than … though that’s pretty good incentive.

Gibson remedied the coaching shortcomings by replacing Tom Bradley with Bruce Tall. Four of the top five defensive linemen are back. True, Shaq Riddick is gone, but you’ve heard about Noble Nwachukwu and Larry Jefferson. Christian Brown seems better at defensive end than on the interior. Linebackers Shaq Petteway and Nick Kwiatkoski are both on the outside where they belong. K.J. Dillon has a chance to lead the team in sacks because Gibson seems poised to unleash the spur on the backfield.

Ideally, WVU wouldn’t need Dillon to do that to make a sizable and necessary leap, and the big pass rush takeaway from camp is that the Mountaineers feel much better about organic pressure.

“We relied on blitzing so much last year,’’ said Holgorsen, whose team wrapped up the pre-classes portion of its preseason Saturday. “The scheme, defensively, you’re not going to have a bunch of sacks with the nose and those two ends when they are playing every-down defense. They hold the point to when other guys can get there.’’

It doesn’t help the line, either, that the player responsible for seven of those 20 sacks, end Shaq Riddick, is gone. That puts even more pressure on the linebackers and safeties to make the plays in the backfield.

The good news is that every one of those linebackers and safeties owns a wealth of experience. Linebackers Nick Kwiatkoski, Jared Barber and Shaq Petteway, along with safeties Karl Joseph and K.J. Dillon, have a combined 92 starts and 178 games of experience.

“Seeing [those five] shoot gaps is better than I’ve seen,’’ Holgorsen said. “The D-line aspect of it, Noble [Nwachukwu] looks good. Larry [Jefferson] has some twitch to get there. So I think we’ll be better. I know the technique aspect of the front is night and day from what it was a year ago.’’