In WVU’s most anticipated season opener in over a decade, the Mountaineers simply underperformed.
The Mountaineers fell 34-12 to Penn State just one year after losing 38-15 as visitors in Happy Valley. This time, though, the world had its eyes on West Virginia, which hosted FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff, ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show, and Grammy nominated recording artist Machine Gun Kelly. WVU disappointed, and nobody knows that more than the players themselves.
“We left a lot out there,” wide receiver Preston Fox said.
Expectations define the story of many games, and in this one, they only amplified West Virginia’s shortcomings. The impact of a loss with such weight has proven time and time again to be significant in sports, with blowout losses often shifting the momentum of teams and harming performance in winnable games.
As a leader in the locker room and on the field, Preston Fox intends to avoid that phenomenon to show itself in Morgantown.
“We are a lot better team than that,” Fox said. “We’ll hold ourselves accountable and show you all next week.”
This mindset to take failure in stride and move forward will be essential for the Mountaineers as conference play approaches. As head coach Neal Brown emphasized all weekend after the loss, the players need to learn and grow from the failure without letting it impact their mindset in future matchups.
That balance can be hard to strike, but for Fox, the key is never allowing expectations to shift his mentality either, making for a consistent middle ground in terms of his excitement and anxiety entering each game.
“It was a big game going into it, but I was kind of calm going into it,” Fox said about the Penn State matchup.
“(You) can’t be emotional, you’ve just got to be ready for it… Prepare like a regular week.”
Though it is possible that this mentality was part of what led to West Virginia failing to live up to expectations in Week 1, keeping emotions out of the pregame training process certainly allowed Fox to respond to in-game scenarios with his preparation in mind.
With the energy in Morgantown now flipped the opposite way, keeping a level head can only be a positive, as it prevents anxiety and outside factors from overriding in-game decision making developed in practice.
As for finding success against Albany, Fox is not worried.
“It’s a long season. You’ve got to stay positive,” Fox said.
Entering West Virginia as a walk-on commit that eventually blossomed into a scholarship player, it is safe to say that Fox’s calm mindset in the face of adversity has gotten him far on the field. As West Virginia prepares for UAlbany, his teammates will benefit from his leadership toward the same success.
WVU takes on the University of Albany at home on Saturday. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. at Milan Puskar Stadium.
Photo by Tanner Mountz, Blue Gold Sports
