MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — For the second time in five seasons, West Virginia went winless the month of October. Unlike the last time (in 2015), the Mountaineers will need to scratch and claw throughout November to even make it to a bowl game.
WVU (3-5, 1-4 Big 12) will look to get back on track Saturday, hosting Texas Tech in its first home game in four weeks. It will also need to win three of its final four games to become bowl eligible with six wins.
While many may be ready to throw in the towel and give coach Neal Brown’s first team a pass, several seniors, including defensive end Reuben Jones, are not ready to give up just yet.
“Whether guys decide that we are about to win out and be the team that we need to be to end the season the right way, it’s on the team to do that,” Jones said. “All I can do as an older guy is say, ‘Look, we have four games left. How are we going to finish this year? Are we going to finish bad, or are we going to come out, get good at practice and come into games with the attitude that we aren’t going to lose anymore?’ ”
Jones came to West Virginia as a grad transfer from Michigan, looking to finish out his career in a place he was comfortable and could play, but that doesn’t mean the will to win stayed back in Ann Arbor. He knew wherever he went, he was going to be expected to be a leader, coming from a prominent program that’s seen it’s fair share of success.
Now, with the Mountaineers’ backs against the wall, Jones wants to be the confident beacon for the younger players to look at.
“I definitely think our team is good enough to get to a bowl game,” he said. “I believe we were good enough to beat Baylor last week. We have four games left and we only have to win three to get to a bowl game. We are capable.”
After the game Saturday, WVU travels to Kansas State on Nov. 16, wraps up its home schedule against Oklahoma State on Nov. 23 and finishes the regular season Nov. 29 in Fort Worth at TCU. All could be considered winnable games, though Kansas State is the only team of the four with a winning record in conference play.
Jones knows this is his swan song, so he doesn’t want this group to go out lying down.
“We are young at a lot of spots, but young guys want to win, too” he said. “I think you stay on top of them. I’m seasoned, I’ve been here for a minute, and sometimes the young guys might not understand that football goes like that. This is going to be my last college run and I’m telling guys that — take advantage of it and play hard.”
Brown isn’t oblivious that his team is in a tough spot with four-straight losses, but what he’s wanted to see throughout is steady improvement. He’s said the Missouri game in Week 2 was the worst the Mountaineers have look this season, and the third quarter at Oklahoma on Oct. 19 was probably their worst sequence.
Outside of those circumstances, especially last week at No. 12 Baylor, that’s what he’s seen, and if it continues into wins to help WVU become bowl eligible, so be it.
“We’re preparing to win every game. Our plan is to win every game — we’ve never gone into a game thinking we didn’t have a great opportunity to win it,” Brown said. “We just want to get better. The best way I can tell them to get better is to focus on the task at hand and we’ve got to be our best. We’ve got a lot of hope in this building. There’s a lot of reasons to be excited, and even with the older guys as seniors, some of them are playing the best football they’ve ever played. There’s plenty to play for for them, and if we get hot here in November, we still have a chance to make postseason play.”
