Photo courtesy of BlueGoldNews.com Under the vociferous instruction of assistant coach Victor Cabral, Eddie Vesterinen (96) and Elijah Kinsler, back, attack Zyir Daniel on a field goal block drill.

MORGANTOWN — He is not one of 79 new players on the West Virginia football roster that opens its season at 2 p.m. Saturday against Robert Morris but somehow, when the game begins, Eddie Vesterinen, will have as strong a feeling of starting over again as any freshman or any transfer.

He is not from West Virginia, yet no one is prouder or more intense in his feeling to what the state and the university have meant to him. No, he is not a West Virginian by birth, but he is a Mountaineer at heart and this opening game will have every bit as much emotion for him as it will for even coach Rich Rodriguez as he returns after being away for 17 years.

He understands his roots are not from here.

“I’m just a kid from Helsinki. I’m really proud of that,” he says.

But even if he has traveled 4,000 miles from Finland to play in Morgantown; even if that journey was long and hard, he has become one of us and would love to have West Virginians come and take a look at his homeland, just as he has theirs.

“I put a lot of pride on being from Helsinki; being able to represent a place like Helsinki. I wish you guys could go there sometimes. It’s a very nice place in the summer. During winter, maybe you should not go. It’s really cold and dark then,” he said, laughing at the memories of winters back home.

You ask AI to sum up winter in Finland and you get this:

“The season is renowned for iconic activities like Northern Lights viewing, husky sledding, reindeer safaris, skiing, and relaxing in saunas. Visitors can enjoy charming winter markets and the festive atmosphere of Christmas, while the unique phenomenon of the polar night occurs in the far north, where the sun doesn’t rise for an extended period.”

Polar nights sound as though they produce a similar atmosphere to what WVU football fans have often felt, but Vesterinen is hoping to have a warming effect on life here and bring more sunlight onto the football program.

At 25, he is a “senior senior” on the football team, so to speak, having been here since 2021. This will be his final season and he admits he will have a case of the nerves when the team runs out of the tunnel and out onto the field again.

“Of course I’m nervous. I hadn’t played a football game since early last year. It means a lot for me,” he said.

That was because in the season’s second game, against Albany, he suffered a serious leg injury that cost him the rest of the season and had him thinking about his life, his past, his future; how much of himself he had put into becoming a Mountaineer defensive lineman.

The rehabilitation last season was not fun. It never is.

“It got to me when I was looking at the games on TV or later in the season when I got on the sidelines. Not being able to play when your team needs you, when they are running out of the tunnel and you are not there, I learned a lot about myself during that time and I grew a lot,” he said.

In what way, you ask.

“That I can always come back. There’s nothing that can stop me. I can say that,” he said gruffly.

He understands the improbability of arriving at this point.

“Every time I step on the field or I’m in the locker room I think about it. That’s not something people back home do. There’s very few players from Finland who got to do this,” he said. I’ve already matched my expectations. There’s nothing to lose. I can only keep going forward and it’s really fun.”

Last year was a long one for those who played as well as for an injured player like Eddie V, as they call him.

“Not very much happened other than playing video games,” he said.

He got himself hooked on “Call of Duty,” a game that fit him as a defensive lineman and a former member of the Finnish Army.

“The six weeks when I was on crutches I couldn’t really move anywhere,” he said. “I had to have my leg up on the table. I had the headset on and with Call of Duty you have to take it serious. It’s not fun to lose all the time. I am really competitive. I want to win. I had that leg up in the air and I was really concentrating, because everything is a competition.”

When he wasn’t doing that, he could think about what it took to get himself noticed at West Virginia as a football prospect.

He had come over in 2017, he said, with a group of prospects from Europe and made a bus tour of schools along the East Coast, looking for a place to play. He said he wasn’t in proper condition then, though, and went home with nothing more than a few picture postcards and some memories … no offers.

He didn’t give up. He got into shape and began sending out videos via Twitter on a daily basis. He showed himself doing everything, lifting, running, pushing tires, running up and down hills.

He even sent one video out of him walking on his hands, something he said he had never done before but used to demonstrate his strength and athletic ability.

One school offered and it was West Virginia.

And so he came to Morgantown, raw but eager, learning every day, pushing himself to fit in at football and in America.

“The biggest culture shock was driving everywhere,” he said. “I’m not used to driving a lot. We would walk around or ride a bicycle. You can’t even get to Walmart here. There’s a bus, but that goes only twice a day. So you drive.

“There’s a lot of small talk. You are never silent here. You have to always have a chat going on, even if you are sitting in an Uber you are talking to the driver to make it comfortable,” he added.

All of that was to get to this year, to his last and Rich Rodriguez’s first.

It was different.

“There’s a lot more football players in this defense, guys who play past the whistle and don’t give up.

Our new defensive coordinator (Zac Alley) has a great mind, he puts us in a great position, so I’m really excited about our defense.

“I’d say we’re there now. We’re in better shape than we’ve ever been. Going against the jet tempo offense we have in practice, that sets the D-line up for success later in the season. The game slows down for us,” he continued.

“We have a great coach in Coach William Green. He pushes us every day and I’m eager to show our work behind the curtains has paid off and everybody will get to make plays. From what I’ve seen we are in a really good spot.”