MORGANTOWN -
Terrell Pinson has his eyes set on a starting role in West
Virginia's defense.
On Wednesday, the 6-foot-3, 210-pound safety signed with the
Mountaineers out of Itawamba Community College in preparation for his January
arrival on campus to compete for playing time and ultimately crack the lineup
as a starter.
That's what WVU associate head coach Joe DeForest saw in
Pinson when he first saw him play earlier this year and with his signing, the
plan goes into motion.
"Coach DeForest told me I'm coming into to start, so I need
to know everything," Pinson says, referring to both the defense itself and the
free and strong safety positions. "He said it might change, it just depends on
the team that we're playing, but probably the majority of time they'll have me
playing free and [freshman] Karl Joseph will play strong."
Joseph spent the 2012 season playing free safety, but it
would be difficult to doubt his effectiveness if he were able to take his
head-hunting ability closer to the line of scrimmage.
Pinson knows that whatever his role, he will have to beat
out other players to achieve it, and that process begins with enrolling for the
coming semester at WVU.
"It's really important being able to be there in the spring
and get back on these weights, because I lost a lot of weight, so I'm just ready
to get back with the program and be able to know the plays and the defense,
because coming into the summer, you're a little behind and I'm trying to come
in there to start," says Pinson.
Signing the national letter of intent takes him one step
closer and for a player who wasn't able to play through the scholarship he
initially signed for with Mississippi State out of high school, it is an
opportunity he does not intend to let slip away.
"I know I'll appreciate it way more than a lot of the
players who are coming straight out of high school," Pinson says of the route
he took to WVU. "Being in JUCO ball, you don't receive any special treatment
like at a university, so I'm glad to get away and get up there to Morgantown,
because I know they treat their players really well. JUCO ball isn't where it's
at."
JUCO ball may not be, but for a person who admits that his
failure to meet academic requirements kept him from an earlier transition to
major college football, Pinson knows that the time he spent in JUCO classrooms
has been beneficial.
"I kind of tell everybody to go to JUCO first if you're – I
don't want to say immature, but it makes you focus on the grades and the
academic part of it first and then they worry about football," he says.
That mentality has gotten him to where he can maintain his
focus in the classroom while going out and racking up 36 tackles, four
interceptions, five pass break-ups and a blocked punt in his final year with I.C.C.
His visit to Morgantown for the season finale win over
Kansas was enough to convince him that although DeForest and company did not
open communication with Pinson until late in the process, WVU was the place for
his future in football.
"He was the man who recruited me and the main thing I like
about the school when I came up for my visit was the fan base," says Pinson. "The
fan base is crazy. Really crazy. Mississippi State or Ole Miss, I've been there
and I've never seen the fans go crazy like that."
Pinson watched film of WVU's defense and read about their
ineffectiveness for much of the 2012 season and rather than be deterred by the
lack of success, he felt motivated to be a piece to the puzzle in fixing the
problems.
"One of the main things Coach DeForest told me was if you want
to make it big being on defense, come to the Big 12 because every team we play
mostly passes the ball," says Pinson. "Every team has their down year, so I'm
hoping this was the down year and we're going to come in and make plays next
year. I don't want to be on a team that doesn't have good defense. We need a
big defense up there."
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