West Virginia heads to Orlando to play UCF this weekend.
The Mountaineers are coming off back-to-back losses, while the Knights have dropped four straight, but lost by two on the road to No. 6 Oklahoma this past week.
UCF head coach Gus Malzahn has a prior relationship with West Virginia head coach Neal Brown and Malzahn spoke on what he sees in the Mountaineers.
“A team that has a head coach I’ve got a lot of respect for. Offensively, they run the football. Defensively, they present some different things,” Malzahn said. “They’re number seven in the country in time of possession. They run the football, they get off the field, they’re good on third down. They’re number 15 in the country in penalties, so they’re a disciplined team.”
Malzahn had high praise for Brown and what he’s done with West Virginia so far this season after they were picked to finish last in the Big 12.
“He’s a really good offensive coach,” Malzahn said of Brown. “He’s a really good football coach period. At Troy he did an unbelievable job and he’s doing a really good job this year. I think somebody said it, they were picked last. They’re not the last placed team. They’re a good football team that could be even better than their record, real easy. You turn the film on, you can see. You look at the discipline of the program, that says a lot about him and he’s got the guys playing extremely hard.”
Kickoff is set for noon on FS1 this Saturday. This will be the first meeting between these two schools since 2004.
