Neal Brown Gives Takeaways from WVU’s Win Over UCF

West Virginia defeated UCF 31-21 on Saturday in their last home game of the season.

It was the Mountaineers’ sixth win of the season, making them bowl-eligible. On Monday, head coach Neal Brown spoke on what went right and what could be improved.

“Couple team things that I thought were important: won the turnover margin; more importantly, points off of turnovers won that one seven to nothing,” Brown said.

WVU recovered a UCF fumble in the first quarter and capitalized with a Jahiem White touchdown on a lengthy drive.

“The middle eight was big for us. Thought we closed out the first half, opened up the second half strong. 14 to 0 during that time,” Brown said.

West Virginia was leading by a touchdown towards the end of the first half and then scored with a Rodney Gallagher touchdown reception with 15 seconds left in the second quarter. WVU received the second-half kick-off for the first time this season and scored again less than three minutes into the second half with a Hudson Clement touchdown reception, making the game 28-7.

Brown also highlighted his team’s discipline, only committing two penalties and the special teams unit as a whole. Punter Oli Straw had a good day, leading to Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Week honors, and kicker Michael Hayes made all of his extra-point attempts as well as a 35-yard field goal. He also mentioned long snapper Austin Brinkman continuing to play well.

“Defensively, I thought the fast start was critical. They (UCF) took the ball, they go three-and-out. Second possession, we create a takeaway (the fumble). That was the best we covered; we got beat by a double move. And then on the last drive, we didn’t play very well, on their last touchdown drive, the last time they had the ball. Other than that I thought that was the best we covered,”

West Virginia allowed under 175 passing yards and a 52% completion percentage. Brown said third-down defense was another positive, with UCF converting just three of nine third-down attempts.

“Offensively, I thought we really controlled the game,” Brown said.

West Virginia had nearly 38 minutes time of possession and scored on half of their offensive drives (5-10). However, Brown was not totally pleased with the Mountaineers’ passing attack.

“Our pass game was not good enough. We got to trigger the ball at quarterback a little better,” Brown said. “I thought our receivers did pretty good. We didn’t protect as well and we didn’t trigger the ball,” Brown said.

WVU passed for just 118 yards but did have two passing touchdowns. Garrett Greene completed 62% of his passes.

The Mountaineers will play Texas Tech on the road this week in their final regular-season game. Kick-off is at noon EST, and the game will be televised on FS1.