West Virginia suffered a 49-35 loss at home this past weekend.
The Mountaineers have had their struggles all year and have just two games left in the regular season. Head coach Neal Brown discussed what he would like to see from his team and how they could close out the season properly.
“We need to play a full three-phase game. We’ve been inconsistent, that’s why we’re 5-5. And that’s what we’re hunting,” Brown said. “What really matters is us playing the best football we can play and playing all three phases at once.”
Brown would continue to emphasize consistency in everything from pass coverage to play as a whole. When asked about his players, Brown said that yes, they’re frustrated, but all they can do is go back to work.
“I think they’re frustrated too like they’re frustrated too that we’re not performing consistently. And all you can do is, you go back to work. It doesn’t do any good to sit here. And it’s like I tell them we have our meeting, we come back after, we do corrections and we start this week. It’s UCF, and when you start the next opponent, man, it doesn’t do any good to reflect,” Brown said.
It’s shaping up to be a cold one at Milan Puskar Stadium on Saturday, with possible snow in the forecast. Brown was asked about that possibility but said he hadn’t paid too much attention to it. He said all he’s looking to do is win, with his team playing all three phases.
“I don’t really care as long as we win. It can be freezing. It can be 105,” Brown said. “My chief concern is can we play offense, defense, special teams well at the same time. That’s what I’m concerned about.”
This is the first week West Virginia has been almost totally out of contention, so Brown shared his message to his players about what motivates them.
“This is the way I approach it with our players. Like all that other stuff is external, the internal motivation should be just to prepare and play your best regardless man. Like you can’t take this stuff for granted,” Brown said. “So, my message to our players is not necessarily on six wins or senior day or any of those things. It’s just man, you should prepare your best today, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday to give yourself an opportunity to play your best on Saturday. And then you should give everything you got, every single play on Saturday. And if we do that then we’ll put ourselves in a position to win late in the game.”
When Brown was asked about this season’s disappointment, he said he was not in a ‘reflective mode’ but rather in a ‘disgruntled mode’ by the recent loss.
“You’d have to ask me in a reflective mode and I’m not in a reflective mode. I’m kind of in a disgruntled mode of how we played on Saturday. And in a mode of getting our guys to play to our capabilities all three phases at one time,” Brown said.
West Virginia will host UCF in their last home game of the season and senior day on Saturday. Kickoff is at 3:30 p.m. ET and the game will be televised on ESPNU.
