MORGANTOWN — Neal Brown scoffs at the idea his players need any extra motivation this week. Playing in front of a sold-out home crowd against the No. 8 team in the country should be motivation enough when West Virginia hosts Penn State on Saturday (noon, FOX).
Fans certainly remember what happened in last year’s game — when Penn State scored an unnecessary extra touchdown with less than 10 seconds on the clock — and are hoping the Mountaineers can exact some revenge.
Brown, on the other hand, isn’t
“It just is what it is. I’m really not using it,” he said. “They scored late and I don’t really necessarily have a problem with it.”
Brown isn’t using the late touchdown as extra motivation, but his players are.
“Of course that upset us,” said senior defensive end Edward Vesterinen. “This past week on the TVs for our meetings and everything, that’s the only clip we’ve been playing all the time. I’ve seen that clip like 100 times in the past week. It just angers me.”
The clip, a five-yard run by backup quarterback Beau Pribula, includes offensive lineman JB Nelson making an ‘it’s over’ gesture, another point of contention for Vesterinen.
“I even know the celebration the one offensive lineman did,” he said. “I took it very personal and I hope everyone on our team took it very personal.”
Brown’s point isn’t that his players shouldn’t care about the late score, more that he wants them to be more concerned about what happened in the third quarter of that game and not just the last 10 seconds.
“The score of the game was the score of the game,” he said. “We had a chance to win the game in the third quarter when winning plays were required and we didn’t make those plays, they did. They beat us and now we’ve got an opportunity to play them at home.”
Rivalry matchups always have some extra juice when compared to other games. WVU has been relearning that over the past few years as series against Virginia Tech, Penn State and Pitt have all been renewed in the last four seasons.
The bad feelings against regional rivals can go deeper than just what’s transpired on the field.
“I have a lot of respect for everything they do up there,” said offensive lineman Ja’Quay Hubbard. “They do a lot of great things up there at Penn State, but I never had the opportunity to play there.”
Hubbard, from Sharpsville, Pa., had scholarship offers from more than a dozen Division-I colleges coming out of high school. Not Penn State, however.
“On paper, I was the number one lineman in the state of Pennsylvania, so I thought that was a little bit different,” he said. “I‘m looking forward to Saturday and seeing what I can do against those guys.”
No matter what the Mountaineers use to motivate themselves this week, Brown wants to make sure his players keep that same energy throughout the season.
“We’re going to play with a chip on our shoulder,” he said. “We’re going to play physical, whether that’s Penn State, Albany, Pitt, Kansas or whoever we’re playing.”
Penn State and West Virginia will kick off for the first time in Morgantown since 1992 on Saturday. The game is scheduled to start at noon and will be broadcast on FOX.
FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff pregame show will broadcast live between the light blue and teal parking lots beginning at 10 a.m.
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