Morgantown — There is not a lot of confidence the West Virginia Mountaineers will open their season with a win on Saturday.
The Penn State Nittany Lions are currently 20.5-point favorites over the Mountaineers when the two meet Saturday night in State College (7:30 p.m., NBC).
Despite being heavy underdogs, WVU’s players are not all that bothered by the unfavorable predictions.
“I like being an underdog,” junior center Zach Frazier said Monday. “I like when people doubt us, that fuels me. When someone says I can’t do something, that just makes me want to do it.”
Very few, if any, visiting teams are ever favored to win in Beaver Stadium, but the odds were really stacked against WVU when the Nittany Lions were ranked No. 7 in the AP’s preseason poll. The Mountaineers, meanwhile, were picked to finish last in the Big 12.
“I don’t think it bothers us,” junior safety Aubrey Burks said. “We know our backs are against the wall. Like (safeties) Coach (Dontae) Wright tells us, ‘It’s always good when somebody doubts you because now you can go prove them wrong.’ We know what we’ve got to do to prove everybody wrong.”
All the Mountaineers have to do to prove everybody wrong is win a game in Beaver Stadium, something a non-conference opponent hasn’t done since UCF won 34-31 in 2013.
As tough a task as it is, opening the season at Penn State is also a fantastic opportunity for the Mountaineers to really show that their preseason ranking was wrong.
“We’re ready to prove to everybody that we can compete,” senior linebacker Lee Kpogba said. “It’s definitely fuel because it just shows that everybody is against us. The people around this facility are probably the only ones who think we can win the game. It’s just fuel added to the fire.”
Preseason rankings are rarely accurate when compared to where teams finish the year and upsets happen every week, so WVU feels they have as much a chance to win as anyone.
“I think it really starts with belief,” head coach Neal Brown said. “You’ve got to have belief not only in yourself but in the people around you and the plan you’re taking in. There has to be a strong belief and it has to be organization-wide.”
Brown is no stranger to leading teams into intimidating road environments and doing the unthinkable. In 2017, Brown led his Troy Trojans into Death Valley and defeated a ranked LSU team, 24-21.
“I think anytime you’re a double-digit underdog and you go into enemy territory against a highly ranked opponent, there’s got to be some things that go your way, but you’ve also got to have a good football team,” Brown said. “My belief is, if we’ve got a good football team we’ve got to go prove it. I like our group and we’ll be hungry.”
To win Saturday, Brown said WVU will need to catch some breaks against the ultra-talented Nittany Lions.
“You’ve got to make plays. There are going to be some 50/50 balls, maybe a return or maybe a play on third or fourth down. We’re not going to make all of them, they’re too talented, but we’ve got to make our fair share.”
The other aspect to pulling an upset is not beating yourself. The Mountaineers have let chances slip away late in games under Brown over the past several years and know nothing like that can happen Saturday.
“It’s just doing our jobs and executing our game plan,” Frazier said. “Can’t have errors; errors will kill us. I think long as we play a pretty sound football game, I think that’s how upsets are executed.”
And then, if everything goes their way, WVU hopes to have a chance to win at the end of the game.
“Your goal is you want to be in there,” Brown said. “You want to be in there and continue to hang in and put yourself in a position to win in the fourth quarter.”
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