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Great practice player takes a practice rep

You are looking live at Maurice Fleming prior to the Aug. 13 scrimmage. At that point, he was being used on the punt, punt return, kickoff and kickoff return teams — not first-team for all of them, but auditioning for a much as he could get —  and the coaches were OK with that because he’s good at all of it.

The trouble, if you want to call it that, was that he was also a first-team cornerback that day. He can’t do everything. He could try, but he wouldn’t be effective.

He’s going to play in the secondary. He might be a starting corner. Or he might be the nickelback. Or he could start at corner and slide over to nickel on third own. Or he could be the corner or the nickel and play safety on passing downs. But he’s going to play, and that much was clear after he arched brows from the moment he arrived in June to the end of camp last week.

In short, it was exactly what Fleming and the Mountaineers anticipated.

He chose the Mountaineers because their top three cornerbacks from 2015 are gone, but Fleming said he felt he could use his experience to give his new team a leader.

He only made 31 tackles in 33 games at Iowa, and he started just once. He hasn’t tackled anyone in a game yet, and WVU hasn’t picked a starter among Fleming, three other fifth-year seniors and two junior college transfers.

But he’s already showing others his ways.

“He’s special from the aspect that he understands how to practice,” Gibson said. “Every single drill he does is full-speed. If you have to watch a kid and the way he works, it’s not even close. He stands out among them all.

“But I expected that from him. He’s a fifth-year kid. It’s not his last chance, but he knows this is his last year of football at the collegiate level, so he’s all in.”