If there were a statistic to pull from Saturday’s scrimmaging and pin up on a board somewhere in the Puskar Center, it’d probably be the number of long gains the defense surrendered in the passing game.

That, of course, is a concern, because West Virginia is trying to replace cornerbacks Terrell Chestnut, Daryl Worley and Ricky Rumph. The times a ball went over a corner’s head didn’t reflect favorably upon that process, and defensive coordinator Tony Gibson confessed that’s already his big concern for the summer.

“Right now, we’re working on depth and experience, and the guy with the most snaps in his career so far would be Nana (Kyeremeh),” he said. “It might not even be a 100 yet. That is the crucial spot. We have four guys coming in that will be able to throw into it. What has to happen, we have to have guys that can cover, because I like to blitz.

Nana Kyeremeh played 112 snaps on defnese last season and not too many before that, so you get Gibson’s point. In some order, Kyeremeh, Rasul Douglas and Antonio Crawford are the top three cornerbacks. The only other cornerbacks on campus are Jordan and Jacquez Adams, so junior college transfers Mike Daniels and Eli Battle and freshmen Jake Long and JoVanni Stewart will audition in the summer. (Interestingly, Gibson said WVU will look around for graduate transfers on defense, and I’d have to assume cornerback will be one position he seeks to address.)

The five on hand have really two more unencumbered opportunities in scrimmages Thursday and then Saturday. The goal is pretty clearly to get to know as much about these players before the others arrive.

“I think that’s the benefit of it,” cornerbacks coach Blue Adams said. “Getting a lot of live reps is effective. You have all of those snaps, and you can evaluate all of those guys against different guys. I’m excited that we can get that many snaps and not take any casualties or injuries, something like that. I just want to get on the tape now.”

The Mountaineers figure to be better Thursday and Saturday than they were this past Saturday, and that day might have been an outlier … and WVU played a lot of zone, which is not the norm. In truth, WVU has tackled well throughout the spring, which was a goal with so many new starters, and on Saturday the first-team defense got stops on 7 of 10 third downs, which is always a goal for Gibson.

Remember, he likes to blitz. That’s going to remain the case, which means the players here or on their way have to fit in, and so far, that hasn’t worried Gibson because of the players who have to help the cornerbacks.

“That’s is what I like about what we’re doing,” Gibson said. “Thursday, we did the exact same thing. I blitzed the whole practice on Thursday. We had 56 situational plays, and I blitzed 36 out of 56 snaps. We didn’t give up one long ball.

“I take that back. We gave up one. Shelton hit us with a slant and just outran us. Other than that, we held up really well. It has to do with those guys blitzing. We have to be able to affect our quarterback and our receivers.”