It was too quick to assume that WVU’s starting corners would be who many thought they would be. After all, why wouldn’t a transfer who started two seasons in the ACC and a senior with three starts under his belt begin the season on the first team?

But they won’t.  A newcomer and a player used mostly on special teams last season will take those spots. So how did Hakeem Bailey and Mike Daniels earn the jobs over Syracuse transfer Corey Winfield and Elijah Battle? With Winfield, the answer is easy: it’s tough to win a starting job when you spend much of the preseason recovering from finger surgery. He’ll get plenty of chances to jump into the starting lineup when he gets healthy. And it also helped that, as corners coach Doug Belk said, that Daniels was probably the most consistent corner at camp.

But what of the Battle-Bailey situation? From what Belk said Tuesday, it might have come down to the film.

“[Bailey] did a really good job and we [chart] production: tackles, missed tackles, the good, the bad and, we say, the ugly as well,” Belk said. “He had a lot of production, a lot of positive things. So did Elijah, but we kind of measured it off that. That’s how we set our depth chart. Nothing is set in stone, but we feel good about our guys. … We chart mental errors and missed assignments,” he said. “Those are the biggest two things. We can coach the techniques, but we don’t want you just freelancing.”

So both guys had their positives, but Bailey, a redshirt sophomore from Iowa Western Community College, had more, and the practice film showed it. (Bailey’s also an interesting story. WVU wasn’t the first Mountain State football program he was pledged to. He had committed to Marshall for its 2015 signing class before heading to Iowa Western.)

Moral of the story: Coaches’ are always watching, and the little things could make a big difference in running with the 1s or the 2s.

This leads to another question: What do you think this means for a WVU secondary preparing for a season opener on a neutral site against a ranked opponent? Sure, Virginia Tech is starting a redshirt freshman at quarterback, but how will a little-used senior and a newly-minted Mountaineer fare?