MORGANTOWN — Halfway through the season, it’s clear WVU head coach Neal Brown is not happy his team is two games under .500 at 2-4, nor is it where he thought the Mountaineers would be as we head into the second half.
But he also made it clear he didn’t expect a loaves and fishes miracle, even in his third year, to compete for a Big 12 championship, even though in three of the four losses, WVU had a chance to win it in the 4th quarter.
“I knew this wasn’t going to be quick,” Brown said. “Now, did I think we’d win some games in the fourth quarter? Yeah. Did I think we’d be 2-4 right now? No.
“Did I think we were going to be 6-0? Probably not, either.”
While the intent was not to take a shot at former head coach Dana Holgorsen, Brown pointed out there was close to a bare cupboard when he arrived in January 2019, after Holgorsen left for Houston.
Scholarship numbers are still down, the offensive line is a work in progress, and the quarterback situation between Jarret Doege and Garrett Greene as been a question mark most of the year.
As Brown mentioned, four of the first six games have come down to key plays in the 4th quarter, but the Mountaineers have only been able to win one, against Virginia Tech.
With a bye week midway through the year and a road game — WVU is 1-7 in its last eight away from Milan Puskar Stadium, the lone win coming in last season’s Liberty Bowl against Army — on Saturday at TCU, Brown said the coaches are doing some soul-searching.
However, he’s sticking to the same plan he’s had for the last three years.
“There’s things that are non-negotiable that we believe in from a program standpoint and from a schematic principle from each phase of the game,” Brown said. “We’re not getting off that. We’re not sitting here hitting the panic button. I’m not freaking out. I haven’t lost belief in our players. I haven’t lost belief in our staff.”
Building on the positives and re-evaluating the negatives was what the team worked on during the bye week, and following the 45-20 loss at Baylor on Oct. 9, Brown said almost everything is on the table, including personnel.
Doing a deep dive into the roster and finding younger players who have excelled in scout team roles or have stepped up in practice is something the coaches hoped to do over the last 10 days.
“What we do have to do is reflect on where we made mistakes,” Brown said. “The positives, how do we continue to build on them and what needs to be fixed? Or maybe more importantly, how do we hide what our deficiencies are better? I think what everybody wants to know is where do we readjust, because you can’t do the same things if they are not working. “That’s what the process of this off week is all about. How do we diminish our deficiencies. Are there some young guys that give us a better opportunity?”
It was announced late last Saturday the TCU game will kickoff at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth. The last true road game WVU won was in the season finale at TCU in November 2019.
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