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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (�����Ƶ News) �����Ƶ� The other day, while leafing through West Virginia's football and men's basketball rosters, along with their potential recruiting classes, I was struck with a lightning bolt out of the past.

It sent me scurrying off to Twitter to get the name of a comedy that had swept the nation back in the late 1970s and early 1980s by the name of Bill Saluga, who put together a "schtick" that became so popular it earned him an Anheuser-Busch Natural Light beer commercial with a highly popular comedian Norm Crosby.

Bob Dylan even played off the theme in his song "Gotta Serve Somebody" and the routine and his Johnson persona showed up on both "The Simpsons" and "King of the Hill" shows.

The routine flashed back to life in my mind as I saw the prevalence of the letter "J" in the names of players and recruits at West Virginia.

First off, let's check on Saluga's routine. It began on the Redd Foxx Show with him the character Saluga was portraying �����Ƶ� Raymond J. Johnson, Jr. �����Ƶ� being referred to as "Mr. Johnson."

"NOOO!!! You don't have to call me Johnson! My name is Raymond J. Johnson Jr. Now you can call me Ray, or you can call me J, or you can call me Johnny, or you can call me Sonny, or you can call me Junie, or you can call me Junior; now you can call me Ray J, or you can call me RJ, or you can call me RJJ, or you can call me RJJ Jr. . . but you doesn't hasta call me Johnson!"

OK, maybe you had to be there, or maybe you ought to watch it on You Tube. It sort of made you wonder what Shakespeare would have thought of it if had been offered up as a response to his oft quoted question "What's in a name?"

See, times change and with it so do the trends we use in naming our children. This, quite naturally, carries over into the names our athletes have. I began noticing a year or so ago the rise in popularity of first names �����Ƶ� and, I guess, last names �����Ƶ� that began with "J" or contained "j" in it.

Now it's true, "J" always has been a popular letter for names ... but that was John and Joe and Jack.

Certainly, West Virginia's best and most famous athlete was Jerry West, so it wasn't really unusual.

Now the names were Jalen and Jaylen and Josh or Joshua or Jamal or Jackson rather than simply Joe, Jack or John.

Certainly, part of it is a change in American demographics and surely social media has something to do with it, because, after all, social media has something to do with everything in our lives today.

And, in this growing era of NIL (name, image, likeness), you need not only a name that can stand out in a crowd to sell a product or yourself as well as needing an image, be it hairstyle or hair color, tattoos or jewelry.

This is nothing new, just far more important than it ever was.

"J", interestingly, isn't exactly the letter you'd think would be so important. It is the last letter added to our alphabet, growing out of a fancy "i".

�����Ƶ noted, this was a peek at the rosters of �����ƵU teams. The men's basketball roster's first five players in a roster listed in alphabetical order are Jimmy Bell Jr., Josiah Harris, Kedrian Johnson, Kobe Johnson and Jamal King.

You go beyond that and you find James Okonkwo and Joe Toussaint, which gives you 7 of the 13 players whose first or last name begins with "J".

And it's not much different in football, where the first four players all have a "J" in their name: Jeremiah Aaron, Rashad Ajayi, Taijh Alston and Jaylen Anderson.

If you skip one player, you come back to Jarad Bartlett.

Further down the roster you come to Jasir Cox, Jackson Crist and the most visible member of the team, transfer quarterback JT Daniels.

There's also Lyn-J Dixon, CJ Donaldson, James Gmiter, Ja'Quay Hubbard and Sam James.

Then you hit the gold mine of Js in the roster with Jordan Jefferson and Justin Johnson Jr. back-to-back.

We could go on and on for the roster includes no fewer than 20 players whose names include the letter J.

But the real harvest comes in the 2023 recruiting class where there are 10 of 16 commitments from players whose first and/or last name begins with J: Josiah Jackson, Josiah Trotter, James Heard, Justin Benton, Jordan Jackson, Jordan Louie, Jahiem White, Raheim Jeter, Cameron Jackson and Tory Johnson Jr.

And so it goes. For teams like �����ƵU in both football and basketball who are looking for more Ws and less Ls, �����ƵU is hoping to find that the best way to spell victory is with a "J".

Oh, one final thing. My middle name is Jay, so I guess you can call me Jay, or you can call me RJ or BJ or Robert Jay or Bobby Jay or ... well, you get the picture.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (�����Ƶ News) �����Ƶ� Defensive back Jackie Matthews announced on Twitter that he is leaving West Virginia to enter the transfer portal.

He is the fourth player to announce he was leaving in the past three days. Matthews played in all 13 games for West Virginia this season, recording 35 tackles and one interception.

"I would like to begin with thanking God because without him this wouldn't be possible. I want to thank West Virginia University for giving me an opportunity to compete at a high level while earning my degree.

"To my brothers, thank you for always supporting me and pushing me to be the best version of myself daily. I will forever be grateful for the bonds I've built.

"To Mountaineer nation thank you for always being there for me throughout my ups and downs. I will cherish those moments for a lifetime.

"This has been the hardest decision of my life but I made a choice that was best for me and my future. With that being said I'll be entering my name into the portal and use my final year as a grad transfer."