MORGANTOWN — For the first time since camp starter, WVU football players will have somewhere to be other than Milan Puskar Stadium starting this week.
“Wednesday school starts and then Thursday they’re going to get on their school routine,” head coach Neal Brown explained on Monday. “They know they’re here all day, (Monday) they know they’re here all day (Tuesday), but they can see the light.”
The rest of WVU’s student body moved back to campus last week and classes begin on Wednesday, adding more and more distractions for Brown’s players as the team continues to prepare for the upcoming season.
“All the students are coming back, we’ve got Fall Fest on Tuesday night. I’m not that damn old, so I can remember the first week of school, it’s a pretty good time,” Brown said. “The job as a coach is when you know they’re starting to drift, you better be at your best. It’s about continuously challenging them to make sure that we’re not just getting through this, we’re getting better.”
“Sometimes you’ve just got to box that out and just stay focused,” receiver Cortez Braham said Tuesday. “Week one we’ve got a real big game and you can’t come in there unprepared. You’ve got to come in there prepared so I just try to zone some of that stuff out really and just stay in my playbook.”
Classes and schoolwork can be a big distraction for players, especially if they fall behind on work or their grades start slipping.
“It’s getting closer to school so guys kind of get distracted,” said cornerback Beanie Bishop, who is working on his master’s degree in sports management. “I’ll get ahead on my schoolwork on one of the off days. I’ll still be in the (football) facility because this is important being in my last year. I’ll take care of the school stuff, it comes first obviously. I’ve got to keep my GPA up but I’ll be around the facility a lot.”
For some of the older players who are further along in their degrees and are used to the school/sports balance, classes starting is not that big of a change.
“It doesn’t really change that much because I’m a senior so I don’t really have that many classes,” Braham said. “It’s really me just watching film and being locked in on Penn State for week one.”
