Maybe one day we rank the playing career of West Virginia’s coaches, but for now, have a look at Doug Belk. Two wholly different Carson-Newman offenses, and the Mountaineers’ new cornerbacks coach is integral in both, catching passes and blocking defenders in a spread game and triggering a separate scheme as the under-center quarterback. (He’d be below Tyron Carrier and above Dana Holgorsen, right?)

We don’t know a lot about Belk just yet, what with this being his first full-time FBS job, but we know his reputation is to make solid first impressions. He landed a commit on his first day on the job and then he got his new players to learn forward once they learned where sent the past three seasons.

That was at Alabama, of course, working as a graduate assistant with Nick Saban and Kirby Smart, and the cornerbacks seem to understand what that means, but Belk also welcomes what’s on the line and, more specifically, in the air in his new home.

“As a defensive backs coach or as a defensive back in general, you have to accept the challenge, and we know we’re going to be challenged in the passing game several times a game,” he said. “Obviously, that’s a big reason why I came here and why the kids we have and the kids we’ve been recruiting want to come here. They know they have an opportunity to compete at a high level every week.”

With pro prospects at quarterback and receiver seemingly every week and schemes designed to make the most of that talent, being a cornerbacks coach in the Big 12 might not be comforting, but it is inviting. This is not the Southeastern Conference, and Belk understands and accepts that.

“I think the new version of the SEC now, there are a lot more teams that spread it out, but it’s still a line-of-scrimmage game, and it probably still is at every level, but I think here, you see the majority of the teams in the league run very similar offenses, where the challenge is the perimeter game, the vertical passing game,” Belk said. “In the SEC, I think a lot of the focus is between the tackles first. That’s a challenge we have to step up to now.”