West Virginia head coach Neal Brown had his weekly media session on Monday, where he went into detail about WVU’s win against BYU, and readied for the challenge ahead facing Oklahoma on the road.
Addressing the issues from BYU game
It was a good and decisive win for Neal Brown’s bunch over BYU on Saturday. The Mountaineers won 37-7, and Brown felt they controlled the game on both offense and defense.
“I thought we played very well on offense and defense. Practiced and prepared well and I thought we earned the opportunity to go out and perform like we did on Saturday,” Brown said. “We got a lot of guys in on offense and defense, played a lot of people and get some valuable experience.”
The negatives for Brown against the Cougars came on special teams, as well as fundamentally. WVU struggled on kickoff all night, and there would’ve been a touchdown scored by BYU on kickoff if not for a holding penalty.
“Two things I’m really disappointed in, one, the penalties, especially the procedure penalties. We haven’t had that this year, we got to clean that up,” Brown said.
“The second thing is special teams. Just very disappointed with how we performed on our punt return unit. BYU’s punt team had struggled and we had zero return yards out of our punt return team. We had two penalties out of that unit and just played really poor on punt return.
“Then disappointed in our kickoff. We didn’t kick the ball very well. We kicked short kicks with low hang time which makes it really difficult to cover. We didn’t tackle very well, we didn’t fit the return. Disappointed in special teams overall. I thought our field goal team really protected well. Mike continues to be good on field goals. Struggled with kickoffs but he was really good with field goals and PAT’s. Field goal block team, we just continue to get pressure up the middle, I thought we affected the kick that they missed. We just need our core players on special teams to play better.”
Players of the Week
West Virginai also announced their players of the week from the win, highlighting who performed well on offense, defense, special teams, and whose play went unnoticed.
OL- Zach Frazier
ST- Austin Brinkman
Def- Anthony Wilson
Off- Jahiem White
Blue Collar- Brandon Yates, Preston Fox, Ben Cutter, Jalen Thornton
Oklahoma Week
West Virginia heads to Norman for the first time in two years and for probably the last time for a good while due to the Sooners heading to the SEC. West Virginia lost on a walk-off field goal in Norman two seasons ago, before the Mountaineers were on the winning side of things last year in Morgantown.
“Turning the page to Oklahoma. Another week, another really tough test. This time we’re going on the road to play one of the top teams in the country,” Brown said.
“We’ve played back-to-back nail biters versus these guys and we don’t expect anything less when we go out to Norman.”
Oklahoma to no surprise is an offensive heavy team. The Sooners lead the Big 12 in offense, averaging just under 40 points per game. While Oklahoma has lost their last two games — both on the road to Kansas and Oklahoma State — Brown knows how challenging of an opponent the Sooners are.
“They play as fast as anyone in the country so alignment is going to be critical. They move their pieces around. Drake Stoops, he’s kind of their jack of all trades, he does a little bit of everything and he’s playing at a high level right now. They’re balanced, they’re always good up front,” Brown said.
“They’re a group that challenges you in a lot of different ways, with RPO’s and the run and the pass. Their most important cog is their quarterback in Dillon Gabriel. He’s playing at a high level, he can run, he’s got a really quick release. The kid’s won both at UCF and at Oklahoma, so a lot of respect for him.”
Gabriel is first in the Big 12 and 12th in the country in total passing yards with over 2,600 on the season. The next closest on the list in the Big 12 has less than 2,000 on the year. Gabriel has thrown for 20 touchdowns and five interceptions this season as well.
Injuries on Offense
West Virginia was without both Doug Nester and Hudson Clement this past week. While Clement dressed for the game, he did not see the field as he’s still working back to be 100 percent. Nester was officially listed as questionable on Monday by Brown as he looks to get his starting right tackle back this week.
“Doug moved around today. We’ll know more as the week goes. I think he’s questionable, but definitely could play,” Brown said.
“Hudson could’ve played in emergency in the game on Saturday. He practiced a little bit last week. I don’t think he’s 100 percent so we made the decision, he dressed and he could’ve been ready but we made the decision not to play him until he’s 100 percent,” Brown said. “He practiced today. He can really help us, big-play ability, so we’re hopeful he can play. But he’s dealing with an ankle and some of those times they just take a little while.”
