Beanie Bishop Jr. was expected to provide stability and production in the West Virginia defensive secondary when he was brought in over the offseason. He was described as an “alpha” in August by Neal Brown.

Eight games into this season, and it’s fair to say Bishop is living up to expectations.

Following his two-interception performance on Saturday against UCF, Bishop leads West Virginia with four interceptions this year. He is tied for second in the Big 12 in the statistic, and has the most interceptions by a Mountaineer since Kenny Robinson (4) in 2018.

He’s doing more than picking off passes, though.

Bishop leads the nation in pass breakups with 12. That’s the most in one season by a Mountaineer since Darryl Worley tallied a dozen PBUs during the 2015 season. Terrell Chestnut added 11 PBUs that year, and only one other Mountaineer (Josh Norwood – 2018) has collected more than nine since.

Additionally, all but two of Bishop’s pass breakups have come against conference opponents. He tallied two Saturday in the win over UCF.

Bishop also leads the country in passes defended with 16. The last Mountaineer to officially defend that many passes in one season was Rasul Douglas in 2016, when he finished the year T-11 in the country in the metric. A year earlier, Worley tallied 18 passes defended.