MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Neal Brown is treating the bye week like most video-gamers would after losing 52-14 on the old NCAA Football video game — press the reset button and start over again.
Unlike a video game, West Virginia (3-4, 1-3 Big 12) can’t pretend the last three games didn’t happen. The Mountaineers have lost to Texas, Iowa State and Oklahoma by an average of 24 points, with the worst coming in 38-point blowout loss to the Sooners last Saturday.
There weren’t too many positives to take out of it, but Brown said the coaching staff will use the bye week to reevaluate across all positions to figure out how to fix the negatives.
Perhaps the most critical to WVU’s success over the last five games to try and earn bowl eligibility is fixing the running game, which outside of two games against N.C. State and Kansas, has been abysmal.
“We’re going to try to get our run game on track,” Brown said on Monday’s Big 12 coaches teleconference. “We’re going to try some different things with some different personnel, some different schematics and some different presentations run-game wise.”
With personnel changes, it sounds like Brown is willing to look at all aspects of the running game to make sure the best players are out there, which sounds obvious, but it could mean jobs are up for grabs before West Virginia travels to Baylor for a Halloween night showdown in Waco.
Against Oklahoma, Leddie Brown got his first start of the season, but the results were about the same as they were with Kennedy McKoy getting the bulk of the snaps. Brown finished with 28 yards on 16 carries, and as a team, the Mountaineers averaged just 1.7 yards on 30 carries.
For the season, WVU is averaging 2.8 yards per carry.
A supposed strength in the preseason may be the greatest weakness offensively through seven games, and with the plan to redshirt Martell Pettaway the rest of the year, it will have to be a major shakeup for the running game to hit a late stride.
“We’re going to evaluate all things,” Neal Brown said. “We’re going to self-scout. We’ve got to be able to run the football. This team’s not necessarily built to be a team that can throw it 50-plus times, so we’ve got to get ahead of the chains.”
Brown mentioned that using fullback Logan Thimons more often could be a part of that personnel change, but in Thimons’ 12-15 snaps against OU, only half were productive.
Offensive line and tight end changes could be in the works, as well, though Brown didn’t go into specifics about who could be stop gaps up front.
Sam James’ potential
On six of West Virginia’s first 10 plays at Oklahoma, the Mountaineers targeted wide receiver Sam James. And like most of the redshirt freshman’s season, it was a mixed bag.
On a jet-sweep to open the game, James showed off his speed and what he can do in the open field, but he also showed that he hasn’t mastered the art of playing wide receiver at this level with several key drops.
“Sam has a great deal of potential and I think some of it’s showing, but at other times, I think he looks like a redshirt freshman,” Brown said. “He and T.J. Simmons are our clear top threats at wide receiver for right now, and that’s probably a little unfair to Sam as a redshirt freshman to be thrown in the mix and have to be a go-to guy. We have big expectations for him and we think he can be special — he did not play his best on Saturday but he will bounce back and he will continue to be a go-to guy for us and he will play better.”
