MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- One-hundred ninth. It isn't a regiment, a longitude or the latest installment of the "Halloween" movie series. It's a statistical ranking that, to the West Virginia Mountaineers, remains rank.

Their pass defense last season finished 109th out of 119 major-college football teams.

Eleventh to last. And seemingly still falling.

Louisville's Brian Brohm riddled them for 354 yards. Pitt's Tyler Palko for 341. Cincinnati's two quarterbacks for 310. South Florida's redshirt freshman quarterback threw for 279. Rutgers' quarterback for 278. And, in the Gator Bowl, Georgia Tech's backup quarterback threw for 326 and three first-half touchdowns.

"Every game, we got worse and worse," cornerback Vaughn Rivers said of the last half of last season.

"We were so far down. One-hundred ninth in the country is going to be motivation for us now. We got that in the back of our heads every day."

"You hear it all the time," added cornerback Larry Williams. "Right now, nobody is No. 1, and nobody is 109th. I think we have great athletes just like any other team we play. We're just going to line up and see what happens."

In one of those ultimate good-news, bad-news propositions, the entire secondary returns from a defense that allowed 416 yards and 32 points per game its final six games. Yet the unit returns with a few new wrinkles, a newfound confidence, renewed zeal. Not that such alterations alone translate into utter shutdown success.

As coach Rich Rodriguez said of his six contending cornerbacks after an unhappy first week of camp: "I don't know if any of them should start, but they're battling for playing time. That's probably the most competitive position we've got. I've been pretty pleased so far."

Williams, Rivers of Perry Traditional Academy and Antonio Lewis -- seniors all -- return at a cornerback position where they are vying with relative newcomers Guesly Dervil, a sophomore; Kent Richardson, who has emerged from Rodriguez's doghouse; and Ellis Lankster, a junior-college transfer.

However, Lewis sprained his shoulder in practice yesterday and will miss at least two weeks.

The lineup changes daily, too. One day last week, Rivers and Lewis, who started eight and 10 games last fall, found themselves working with the third-team defense.

"Just getting the young guys some rotation and stuff," Rivers said. "Nothing major. Nothing set in stone."

"We have a different rotation every day," added defensive backs coach Tony Gibson. "Keep rolling, keep trying to find ... guys to make some plays. We have no clue who are ones, twos or threes."

The numbing numbers from last season might explain why.

On a defense manned at cornerback by Rivers, Lewis, Williams (seven starts) and Dervil (one), the Mountaineers yielded on average 243.3 yards passing per game and 12.96 yards per completion, ranking in the bottom fifth of the former Division I-A now labeled the Football Bowl Subdivision. In that six-game limp to the finish, they yielded 314.6 yards passing per game and 17.64 yards per completion.

"For us to win a lot of games last year and see how terrible our defense was on the back end ..." said senior safety Eric Wicks, Rivers' former Perry teammate.

The entire blame can hardly fall on the cornerbacks, for West Virginia's defense adds three safeties to the equation in its 3-3-5 alignment. While first-team all-Big East Wicks started every game at strong safety, five players rotated at free safety and bandit. Wicks has been switched back to bandit safety, while returning starters Quinton Andrews, Ridwan Malik and Charles Pugh have been joined by converted cornerback Boogie Allen and Michigan transfer Ryan Mundy of Woodland Hills in another position competition that goes six deep, if not more.

On the defensive front, the front six failed to get a sack until Game 5 last season and collected only 17 of the team's 31. A lack of pressure on quarterbacks also caused problems for the Mountaineers' secondary.

A bolstered pass rush and speedier linebacking corps, with outside linebacker Marc Magro, moved from the middle, expected to align as a rush end on occasion, along with disguised coverages and perhaps even the occasional 3-4 formation are all facets expected to keep the Mountaineers from giving up big plays this fall. There also is depth to keep players fresh or swap out struggling fellows.

Another key from 2006 cannot be discounted: They learned as they got burned, a know-how that will "help us not get exploited in some of the things we did last year," Rivers said.

"Experience is a big factor this year; now we can go out there and not be all intimidated and too tight," added Williams, who also spoke of an increase in communication among the secondary members.

"Out there, when you have nobody supporting you, you feel like you're on an island by yourself. Your confidence might go down, your self-esteem. Now we're so close as a team."