West Virginia and Penn State meet for the first time since 1992 on Saturday.
The making of an upset could mean a whole lot of different things to a whole lot of people. For West Virginia though, that’s exactly what they’re trying to do on Saturday.
When the ball is kicked at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday night at Beaver Stadium, the Mountaineers will be expected to lose by almost three touchdowns.
A team picked to finish last in the league, playing a road game in one of the most hostile environments in the country, against the No. 7 team in the country with national championship aspirations. Easy enough, right?
“I think anytime and 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,” West Virginia head coach Neal Brown.
The flip side of that is having a good football team and for Brown he believes he does despite being selected to finish 14th our of 14 teams in the Big 12.
“You also have to have a good football team,” Brown said of the idea of pulling an upset. “My belief is we got a good football team. We got to go prove it. It’s hard to stand on a soap box until you go out and play a game.”
For Brown and the Mountaineers, they are going to have to stop a strong Penn State rushing attack as well as be able to beat a defense that Brown says has many future pros on it.
“They’ll portably be the most talented group we play,” Brown said of Penn State’s defense. “I may be conservative in this, but they’ve got nine draft picks probably in their two-deep on defense. THat’s not me up here just talking, that’s legit. They’re talented everywhere. They played extremely well down the stretch last year. They’re an attacking group.”
Brown is deploying a new starting quarterback for week one for the third consecutive year. All signs seem to point to it being Garrett Greene, the redshirt-junior who has been at WVU since the fall of 2020.
Last season, Greene played the majority of snaps in WVU’s final three games, a stretch they went 2-1 in. Although Brown won’t name a quarterback, Penn State head coach James Franklin expects Greene to be the guy.
“Obviously, Garrett Greene, the quarterback, who I would anticipate is going to be the starter in this game, that will be a big storyline,” Franklin said.
The other areas that give the Penn State head coach a reason to pause is the depth at running back and the return of the offensive line.
Led by CJ Donaldson, WVU will look to get the running game going through him.
“Got a ton of respect for their running back, CJ Donaldson,” Franklin said of the true sophomore.
“Ideally, I’d love for him to get 15 plus touches. He’s going to play. We’re going to let him roll,” WVU offensive coordinator Chad Scott said. “Ideally we’d love for him to touch the ball 15 plus times.”
Donaldson will be running behind a WVU offensive line which features three native West Virginians with Zach Frazier at the center position and Doug Nester and Wyatt Milum at the two tackle positions.
“The strength of our football team is on the offensive line,” Brown said. “We’ve got to win some one-on-one battles up front against probably the most talented group we’re going to play against all year.”
Conversely, Penn State also has a. quarterback question mark heading into Saturday night.
It is expected they will go with sophomore Drew Allar, who played in 10 games, but only totaled 60 pass attempts.
“I thought he had a great camp. All of his numbers were really good. There’s been some great situations that have come up in terms of how we cover situational football, whether it’s two-minute, four-minute, how to manage all those types of things,” Franklin said of Allar. “I think Drew has had, I would say a good camp, a camp that’s given himself, his coaches and teammates a bunch of confidence.”
Brown hopes his defense can take a step up from last season, where they struggled in the secondary and in the middle of the field when defending the pass.
Brown’s goal is to put the game on Allar’s shoulders and make him be the difference.
“Whoever starts is going to be making their first start ever and there’s some pressure that goes along with that,” Brown said of the Penn State quarterback decision. “We’ve got to make it tough on him. We’ve got to disguise some things, we got to give him some different things. But he’s really talented.”
As for the upset piece to it all, if Brown and West Virginia want to pick up just the 10th win all time against Penn State in program history, then they must do the little things right and not hurt themselves.
“I think it really starts with belief. You’ve got to have belief not only in yourself but the people around you and the plan that you’re taking into the contest. There has to be strong belief and it has to be organizational wide,” Brown said of what goes in to an upset.
“We’ve got to make our fair share (of plays) and then your goal is you want to be there,” Brown said. “You want to continue to be in there. You want to hang in, hang in, hang in, and put yourself in a position to win in the fourth quarter. And those opportunities we’ve had that go the way we want them to go, that’s been the way they’ve played out.”
