Brown looks to build successful West Virginia program to match fans
Sometimes unprompted isn’t the best approach in post-game press conferences.
Passion, emotion and the sorts tend to take over and the message is sometimes lost in the delivery itself. That certainly wasn’t the case for what West Virginia head coach Neal Brown did following his team’s rather listless 38-17 home loss to Texas Tech.
No, Brown hit the mark and then some.
This Mountaineers football team hasn’t always been the best product on the field, but you could never doubt the effort that they played with on a game-to-game basis. That was in question following what had unfolded against the Red Raiders with some wondering if there was some ‘doubt’ to the climb.
But 56,573 strong showed up to watch the disaster that played out on Mountaineer Field in four parts and Brown didn’t let the moment pass-him-by to let them know it was certainly noticed, despite not returning that appreciation with the results on the field.
“They were here for our man-trip at 9:30 a.m. in the upper 20’s, low 30’s. they were supportive. They were here through the bad first half. They were here through the second half and a high percentage of them stayed and I appreciate that and that absolutely does not go unnoticed,” he said.
Brown recognized that his football team isn’t playing well and you don’t have to look further than the 3-6 record to determine that is indeed a fact. There’s a lot of work that will need to be done both on the recruiting trail with attracting players into the program and development of those already in it.
But Brown understood that from the start and established his mantra about the climb well before the season to reflect that patience will eventually lead to results on the football field. After a 3-6 start, some might be beginning to wonder just how long that could take.
Brown doubled down while reaching out to the fan base in the process.
“This is probably going to be one of our worst days, but I’ll tell you right now we will build a successful program here,” he said. “It doesn’t look like it right now but because of them and for them we will be successful here. We will absolutely be successful here,” he said.
Brown recognized that he, of all people, are as frustrated as anybody about the current state of the football team but there are reasons for optimism moving ahead.
Of the 44 players that played against Texas Tech, 22 of them were either freshmen or sophomores, while 9 more will be returning as seniors next year. That doesn’t even include the list of walking wounded which has grown to a considerable size throughout the year.
There’s a lot of players coming back and clear plan to help get the program back to the standard. A standard that Brown believes will eventually match the one being set by the fan base on a week-to-week basis and one that must become the goal of the program.
“We have a high percentage of guys that are going to be back, not only one year, but they’re going to be back three years and they will get significantly better and we’ll do a better job coaching them,” Brown said. “And there will be a product on the field that will match the fans that we have.”
It was a message that some needed to hear across the rolling hills of West Virginia and one that was delivered with sincerity to help people collect their thoughts after a disappointing result on the field. Yes, West Virginia lost a football game Saturday, but Brown might have won something much more critical moving forward.
The trust and respect of his fan base.
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