WVU football: Bartlett spending offseason focused on fundamentals

MORGANTOWN -- Before West Virginia began its 2023 spring practices, head coach Neal Brown said he thought Jared Bartlett “has had one of the best winters in our program.” The individual focus this offseason for the redshirt junior bandit was on the same thing the defensive staff wanted the whole unit focused on -- the fundamentals. “When you go back to what coach Brown said about this spring, really working on fundamentals and stuff like that, it’s just getting back to my technique,” Bartlett said after a practice this spring. “That’s how you make routine plays. That’s what makes you a better player." He finished the 2022 campaign with 26 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks. Bartlett will be one of the most experienced Mountaineers this fall as he’ll enter with 37 career games played and 14 starts, and he's expected to be one of the team’s leaders on that side of the ball. “I’d say in the past it was definitely a role I had to grow into, but I think I’m growing into it nicely,” he said. He played in four games and redshirted in 2019, 10 games with two starts in 2020 -- he finished second on the team with 3.5 sacks that season -- and in 13 games with three starts in 2021. His career totals include 85 tackles, 15 tackles for loss, 9.5 sacks and two forced fumbles. The 6-foot-2, 236-pound Miami native says he’s learned a lot from his first spring until now, including the biggest lesson he recalls from early on -- “that you can’t bull-rush a 315-pound tackle. It doesn’t work, especially when you’re, like, 220.” While he’s been able to provide some pressure on opposing quarterbacks in the past, things might look a little different with WVU's pass rush this fall without Dante Stills and Jordan Jefferson along the line. The two combined for 18.5 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks last season. “I think that a lot of guys need to carry more weight now, to put it plainly,” Bartlett said. “Which we have the guys to do that. We have the depth to do that.” Bartlett said WVU’s defense this year does “a lot of good things -- a lot of great things, actually,” like getting to the quarterback and in the backfield, and says this year’s team is much improved in tackling. The fifth-year WVU head coach says the bandit has gotten better individually, too. “He’s playing the run better. I think he has less wasted movement. He had a good winter. He’s put on some weight,” Brown said midway through the team’s spring practices. “When I say wasted movement, less false steps, he’s using his hands better, he’s setting up some of our movement stuff we do with him, he’s setting it up better, a little more patient, which comes with maturity. I’m pleased with where he is.” Bartlett’s even gotten some advice to help his game from a family member -- his brother and former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive lineman Stephon Tuitt -- and it goes back to that same thing he was focusing on throughout the offseason. “The fundamentals,” Bartlett said. “Everything’s really coming down to that. Hand placement, shedding blocks -- you can’t make a play if you’re getting blocked. Linemen block with hands, so getting their hands off you, football IQ things, you know? Things like that.” While admitting that, as a veteran player, it can be difficult working on technique and fundamentals with as much frequency as he has, he knows it’s what’ll help him help the Mountaineers when they open the 2023 season Sept. 2 at Penn State. “There’s a saying -- greatness is mundane,” Bartlett said. “Working on the fundamentals, it can get really tedious, but you know at the end of the day that’s what’s going to get you where you want to be.”