MORGANTOWN — Neal Brown did not take kindly to West Virginia being picked last in the Big 12 football preseason poll.
“I’m upset about the media poll, definitely do not agree with that,” Brown said during Big 12 media days on Thursday. “The positive is the media, as far as predicting the Big 12, has not been very successful in recent years, so I think that bodes well for us.”
The Mountaineers were picked 14th in the media preseason poll with just 129 points, well behind 13th-place Cincinnati’s 202. Brown said he found out while he was on vacation last week.
“I was sitting on the beach last week when (WVU SID) Mike Montoro sent me a text and I made the mistake of looking at it,” Brown said. “From that point on, my vacation was over and I went into football mode.”
The Mountaineers have not finished better than fifth in the conference under Brown, who is entering his fifth season in Morgantown. WVU finished in a three-way tie for seventh place last season with a 3-6 conference record. Two of those wins, however, came in the team’s final three games of the season, which Brown said gives him hope for 2023.
“This is why I disagree,” Brown started. “First of all, it starts with belief in our staff and belief in our players. How we finished would be the next thing, we beat Oklahoma and beat Oklahoma State on the road, winning two of our last three games.”
Brown said he isn’t trying to shield his players from the poll and held a team meeting on Tuesday to talk to WVU’s players about being picked last in the poll.
“I think we’re past, in this day and age of media information, of being able to ignore anything,” Brown said. “I think your best opportunity is just to confront it. We had a team meeting on Tuesday where we talked about it in detail. Probably in more colorful terms than I just did here, but a lot of the same things that I said to our team, I just repeated here.”
Brown pointed to several reasons why he believes the team will be better in 2023, including an offensive line that returns 132 starts and a “budding superstar” in running back CJ Donaldson.
“What we spent a lot of time on was talking about just being better,” Brown said. “We have a clear vision of what we have to improve on. If you talk offensively, we have to get better efficiency, especially on first down and in the red zone, we’ve got to be more explosive and we’ve got to eliminate errors.”
Brown told ESPN’s Heather Dinich that he plans to retake play-calling responsibilities this season after former offensive coordinator Graham Harrell handled it a year ago.
“The decision goes back to, we’re in a year where we need to have success,” Brown told Dinich. “That’s not something I try to hide from. … Really, in a pivotal year, you fall back to your strengths. Last year didn’t go the way we wanted to. We underachieved, especially on the offensive side of the ball.”
Defensively, Brown believes the team will be vastly improved with an all-conference caliber player at all three levels and an influx of experience in the secondary.
“Defensively, we’re going to be one of the most improved units in the Big 12, if not in the country,” Brown said. “We have all-league type players at all levels … and we’ve added talent and experience in the secondary through the transfer portal.”
By being picked last in the preseason poll, the Mountaineers are behind all four conference newcomers, who occupy spots eight and 11-13, and both of the teams they defeated at the end of last season, No. 3 Oklahoma and No. 7 Oklahoma State.
“We’re looking forward to proving everybody wrong on that front,” Brown said. “We won’t finish (last).”
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