We’re several strides into the next phase of the offseason, and coaches will spend time reviewing snippets of film from spring practices to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their respective positions and sides of the three-sided ball. It’s not easy work, and defensive coordinator Tony Gibson is going to need and take some time to sort out what happened on his watch.

He has “maybe 4 1/2” linebackers and needs six, and though he’s the linebackers coach, he knows safeties and cornerbacks. Gibson will look and assist as can, not necessarily because cornerbacks coach Blue Adams and safeties coach Matt Caponi are new, but because Gibson is a bit concerned about what he has and has not seen in the back end.

The offense scored 49 points in the Gold-Blue Game, and though it’s a spring game and you take some things far less seriously than you do others, a collection of quarterbacks and receivers came together for 32 completed passes on 49 attempts for 433 yards and seven touchdowns.

True, there were four interceptions, but one was a bobble in the middle of the field and one was a duck when the passer’s arm was hit as he threw. Touchdown passes covered 69, 12, 29, 13, 25 and 34 yards — “Wait, that’s six!” True. The other was a 2-yard throw, and that was cheeky offense. — and additional gains of 27, 29 and 46 yards.

Man-to-man defense was not great. “I’d have to say, from the start date to the end date, we’re not very good right now,” Gibson said.

Remember, because Gibson cannot forget, the Mountaineers are replacing their top three cornerbacks and two of their three starting safeties — and that third cornerback, Ricky Rumph, was a spare safety. WVU has five scholarship cornerbacks. Three have never played a down at WVU. One of the two safeties is Marvin Gross, who’s never been a full-time safety and is now playing spur, which is the key position on defense.

Summer arrivals figure to shake things up, but that doesn’t make Gibson feel better about what he witnessed in the spring. It was parts good and parts bad, but interchangeably, and that’s what left him miffed as he sits at the drawing board. WVU has the capacity to play well and to play not-so-well.

Gibson said Kyeremeh had perhaps the best spring on defense. Some of his defenders, namely free safety Dravon Askew-Henry and cornerback Antonio Crawford, who intercepted Howard and returned it 29 yards for a touchdown, are better in coverage now than they were before.

None of that alleviates his worries about playing man-to-man.

“We’ll have to continue to keep building it, and if we can’t I won’t play it,” he said. “We’ll have to come up with a lot more zone coverages if we can’t cover guys man-to-man.”

Gibson does not want to do that. When the Mountaineers lost safety Karl Joseph to a season-ending injury last season, Gibson decided to call fewer blitzes and to give the secondary a better chance against pass plays. He was so upset by how his play calls cost his defenders hostility and confidence that he vowed to never do it again.

Swapping out man-to-man for zone would affect the Mountaineers in a similar manner.

“It would take away from our aggression and how we want to play and what we want to do,” Gibson said. “It would be tough to go into a game not having the confidence in calling man coverage. I wouldn’t be comfortable with that at all.”