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MORGANTOWN - West Virginia's leading tackler wasn't planning on returning to Morgantown this fall. Then, he changed his mind.
Now, with the Mountaineers set to begin spring practice later this month, he ultimately won't be donning the gold and blue -- for real this time.
The offseason odyssey of three-year starting linebacker Josh Chandler-Semedo has been an interesting one, featuring many twists and turns. Openly expressing his intent to leave in the games' final weeks, he announced in December that he would partake in his fifth year of college football this fall.
Late last month, the veteran linebacker entered the transfer portal, leaving the Mountaineers with a gaping hole in the middle of their defense less than a month before the start of spring ball.
"At the end of the day, the portal's part of life now," defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley said. "We can all sit around and complain about it, or just deal with it as it goes."
To its credit, West Virginia has done its best to roll with the punches. While Chandler-Semedo is the 18th player to enter the transfer portal since last August, Neal Brown and company have made it a priority to embrace transfers in order to fill out the roster.
In fact, in the running to take over Chandler-Semedo's old spot as the starting mike linebacker is Lee Kpogba, a transfer from East Mississippi Community College that came to WVU this semester.
After originally signing with Syracuse in the 2019 recruiting cycle, Kpogba found himself suspended indefinitely from the team last February for undisclosed reasons. He surfaced at EMCC, where he averaged 8.4 tackles per game -- fifth in the Mississippi Association of Community Colleges Conference (MACCC).
"He's ultra-competitive, I think I saw him talking trash to a tire the other day as he was flipping it," Lesley said. "He didn't have to have competition from a human; he's got that type of mentality that you want at that position. He just kind of has his natural leadership abilities. Even though he's new to the roster, he's not afraid to show that.
"Lee, not big mistakes, but he makes mistakes, whether it's didn't touch the right cone or whatever, and he always owns it. That's the one thing about him: he owns everything that he does wrong, he fixes it, moves on to the next rep which, again, is something that I think, overall, we've got to do a better job of."
Including Kpogba, five different additions have experience playing at the Division I level. There's Lyn-J Dixon, a running back from Clemson; Brian Polendey, a tight end from Colorado State; Marcis Floyd, a cornerback from Murray State; and Zeiqui Lawton, a defensive end from Cincinnati who previously suited up for South Charleston High School.
With remaining scholarships, Brown said the team is prioritizing adding a linebacker and one or two players to the defensive secondary, among other pieces.
"We'll have some attrition between now and in the spring -- that's kind of the way it goes -- but fully anticipate us being around 70 or 80 going into fall camp," Brown said. "Then you have some opportunities for some blueshirts, you have some opportunities for walk-ons to earn those opportunities."
Special teams addition
Brown highlighted the need to add a kickoff specialist when he spoke to the media last week, and he's already found his man.
Parker Grothaus, formerly of Florida State, announced his transfer to WVU Sunday. He's spent much of the past three seasons as the team's kickoff specialist, and delivered touchbacks on 29-of-63 (46%) of his kickoffs in 2021.
The move has yet to be publicly confirmed by a team spokesperson, but Grothaus was listed in the school's student directory as of Monday morning.