MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Wes Lyons is tranquil by nature. He speaks in short, almost-whispered sentences, belying his long, unmistakable 6-foot-7 frame. He speaks matter-of-factly.

To him, the reason West Virginia fans heard little from him through the season's first quarter is simple. He was a one-legged receiver.

At the urging of the Mountaineers' medical staff, he had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee the week before camp started in August. It was a cartilage ailment that arose in summer workouts, and the staff aimed to avoid any in-season difficulties for their biggest target. Coach Rich Rodriguez had a knee scoped within minutes of Lyons, and he joked, "I'm not a tough guy, but I was back in practice the same day."

The problem, Lyons said, came with his hasty return from surgery.

"I feel I stepped out there too early, maybe, and then it flared back up. Or in the process of practice, I tweaked it again," recalled Lyons, who could make a second consecutive career start Saturday for the 5-1 Mountaineers against visiting Mississippi State (4-3). "I don't even know what happened. I mean, I practiced. I started getting better, started feeling good. Then something happened. It was messed up after that. I couldn't do anything on it, really. Just started rehabbing again."

Hardly hobbled nowadays -- he considers himself 90 to 95 percent healthy -- Lyons, a sophomore from Woodland Hills, has burst into the passing offense and the consciousness of fans who long salivated over potential fade routes with a receiver as tall as 12 of the 15 players on Bob Huggins' West Virginia basketball roster.

Two games ago, at South Florida, Lyons caught three passes for 48 yards as backup quarterback Jarrett Brown, with whom he works most often in practice, tried to rally the Mountaineers in a losing cause. Against Syracuse, he made his inaugural collegiate start, then snagged a 17-yard pass from Patrick White and a 21-yard pass from Brown -- both in third-and-long situations.

Those short spurts of passing productivity, totaling five catches for 86 yards, along with some decent blocking comprise Lyons' contributions to date in playing all but one of ninth-ranked West Virginia's half-dozen games. Then again, until two weeks ago, Lyons had been seen more often than heard from: Mountaineers message boards were rampant with a cute photo of the tall Lyons walking off the field at Marshall beside the small Noel Devine. "That looked like he came up to my hip," Lyons said.

By any measure, this receiver took choppy steps last fall and apparently large strides this season. In the past two games, he has surpassed his 13-game total as a freshman -- four catches for 39 yards, all in September 2006 against Eastern Washington and East Carolina.

"My first year was kind of shaky," Lyons admitted. "But I feel comfortable now. It slowed down for me."

Others see a change in him, too.

"The big difference in him is his sense of urgency," said fellow receiver Dorrell Jalloh. "He knows he can play a role out there, not just as a blocker."

"He is a guy who can be a weapon for us, not just because he's 6-7, 6-8 -- we're not in a dunk contest," Rodriguez said. "He's been playing his best football recently, and we need that. Particularly when you play somebody like Mississippi State who's going to load up everybody up front and challenge you on the outside" in press, man-to-man coverage.

"Now what we want from Wes is that hunger and consistency every day, not just in games but in practices. And he's made an effort to do that. I think it's just his personality: It's a lot more important to him than he shows sometimes."

Lyons continued: "I can show emotion. But I try to not let anything effect me. Just keep on playing, doing what I do." He said it with the same unaffected poker face. The same gentle voice.

NOTES -- Rodriguez said defensive end James Ingram (back) is out for Saturday, and linebackers Ovid Goulborne and J.T. Thomas are "very questionable" with hamstring injuries. ... Junior-college transfers Archie Sims, a linebacker from Mississippi, and Florida receiver Alric Arnett might be redshirted.