New memories are a shoe-in if Taylor helps WVU 'revamp the offense'
When West Virginia opens the 2023 football season 130 days from now, it's quite likely going to happen in front of the largest crowd to see a Mountaineers game.
WVU visits Penn State on Sept. 2, and the Nittany Lions have the second-biggest stadium in the FBS. They can entertain 106,572, and that'd top the crowd of 101,851 that saw WVU beat Texas 48-45 at Memorial Stadium in 2012. Truth be told, Penn State can do better. Penn State does do better. Given the rebooted rivalry and the preseason expectations, it wouldn't be a surprise to see a number above capacity.
And yet, that might be a surprise to many of the Mountaineers. The current roster has two players who have played in a game with a six-figure crowd. A third will join. A few others have been close -- former Kentucky defensive lineman Davoan Hawkins thanks to some SEC road trips and former Kent State receiver Ja'Shaun Poke and cornerback Montre Miller thanks to some non-conference games -- but only spear Lance Dixon and tight end Kole Taylor have crossed the threshold.
Dixon's first two college games were at home with Penn State in 2019 against Idaho and Buffalo. He didn't play, but there were four other home games and a road game with more than 100,000 fans that season. (Former Penn State defensive lineman Fatorma Mulbah will arrive over the summer, and the Nittany Lyons had 14 home games and two road games with crowds topping 100,000 the past two seasons. Mulbah played in 1o of those games.)
The player with the most experience in front of a big crowd is one of the newest players on the team, and former LSU tight end Kole Taylor has one of the most bizarre stories about what an atmosphere can do you. In his two non-COVID seasons with full crowds, Taylor played in front of six six-figure crowds, and the Tigers were routinely close but just below that mark. In 2021-22, they ranked Nos. 6 and 4 in average home attendance.
"I've been in that atmosphere. It's a fun atmosphere, but you can't let it get to you," Taylor said following Saturday's Gold-Blue Game in front of a slightly smaller crowd of perhaps 3,000 people. "You're on the field and you've got a job to do each and every play. You're going to get booed. You're going to get clapped at. It's going to happen. You've got to keep your focus and stay locked in every single play."
The consequences can be dire, even if the environment is a little less than expected. In 2020, LSU was playing a road game against Florida, and there were just 16,610 in the stands because of the pandemic restrictions. That didn't stop a defender from losing his head when Taylor lost a shoe.
"That," Taylor said, "is something that'll stick with me my whole career."
Taylor is famously attached to one of the more memorable moments in the rivalry's recent history. He was tackled short of the sticks on a third down catch late in the fourth quarter of a tied game ... but safety Marco Wilson threw Taylor's left shoe. The unsportsmanlike penalty gave the Tigers a first down, and the 22-point underdogs would win on a school-record 57-yard field goal.
"It was good to be able to play in that game my freshman year," he said. "We were running some sort of vertical concept and I was a check-down. It was a third-and-10 on the last series, and he threw it to me and I'm like, 'Why are you throwing me a check-down on third-and-10? This is a big game.' I tried to make a play and tried to go up and over, and he took my shoe off and threw it."
The size 14 Nike Vapor Edge Pro 360 became oddly famous, and those were the biggest numbers to be attached to Taylor at that time. Before that game, he caught one pass for 3 yards. He caught three passes for 11 yards against Florida and then two passes for 22 yards in the season finale a week later. In his next two seasons, he played in 25 games and started five but totaled 11 catches for 123 yards and one touchdown.
He'd like to be known for more than footwear now, which is why he's with the Mountaineers, who'd like to use their tight ends more than they've been known to during Neal Brown's four seasons in charge. The 6-foot-7, 245-pound Taylor, from Grand Junction, Colorado, was a three-star prospect with a 0.8850 rating in the 247Sports Composite and was ranked No. 16 among tight ends in the 2020 class. He picked the Tigers over offers from Miami, Washington, Texas A&M and Arkansas, but it never went the way he envisioned.
The Mountaineers, who are replacing graduated Brian Polendey and transferred Mike O'Laughlin, were able to make a connection because they wanted what Taylor wanted. WVU sought someone who can take the offense to the next level, and Taylor has next-level goals for the NFL. He caught three passes for 36 yards and three first downs in the spring game, and a one-handed grab in the middle was a highlight, not because it was acrobatic but because it was the first read for quarterback Nicco Marchiol. That's not something WVU was doing when the spring started, but the offense and its new weapon followed through at the end.
"A lot of people can sell things, but really what it came down to was I had trust in my ability," he said. "I knew if I came here and I showed that I can make plays, I'd kind of force them into making me get the ball. We sat down in the recruiting process and talked about what their plan is to use a tight end. Obviously, in the past, they haven't used it all that much, but at Troy they used it a good bit. They kind of wanted to revamp the offense, and I was a piece they wanted to help revamp the offense.
"They kind of gave me that throughout the recruiting process and showed me a lot of film from stuff that they plan on doing. I think they've kept the promise. (Saturday) I made a couple of plays and had some catches, and throughout the whole spring I made a good bit of catches. So, I think we're revamping the offense and using the tight end this year."
