West Virginia head coach Neal Brown held his weekly radio show on Thursday night, talking all things Mountaineers ahead of their rivalry game against Pitt this weekend.
Eddie Vesterinen
One of the only injuries West Virginia has faced through the first two weeks of the season is defensive lineman Edward Vesterinen.
He left in the first half of the game last week against Albany, and Brown announced he would be out for a while going forward.
"Edward Vesterinen he's going to be out for a good bit. He has a redshirt so if we need to use that we can because he's played three years in a row. Great guy, really kind of the leader in that defensive line room and he plays with a high motor," Brown said.
Brown added there will be guys who fill in for him but they will miss his leadership and high motor on the field.
Anticipation for Backyard Brawl
This will be WVU's second rivalry game in three weeks and this game will be on somewhat of a national stage.
Brown said his team has responded well in practice this week and he's excited for Saturday.
"They're excited. They understand, they understand this game means a lot. They understand it's going to be intense.," Brown said. "They understand we've got another opportunity on a national stage which doesn't happen very often. Two weeks ago we failed and we failed very publicly. And now in a very short amount of time, we've got another opportunity on a national stage against our number one rival. We've got a chance to redeem ourselves and redeem ourselves from that performance two weeks ago. They're locked in."
WVU and Pitt have split the last two matchups with the Mountaineers falling in Pittsburgh 38-31 in 2022 and beating Pitt 17-6 in Morgantown last year.
Breaking down Pitt
Brown also broke down his upcoming opponent on Saturday, talking about Pitt's new-look offense as well as their defense which is something they've seen before.
The Panthers are off to a 2-0 start but have a new offensive coordinator which brings a new offensive philosophy.
"The thing that jumps out to you is they've completely, 180-degree changed philosophy on offense. They are playing as fast as you can possibly play, they are throwing the football on two-thirds of the downs... they are wide open, a lot of 10 personnel, or a lot of 11 with the tight end split out," Brown said.
Pitt runs a high-tempo offense and they spread the ball out, led by Eli Holstein at quarterback and Desmond Reid at running back.
Defensively, it's a lot of the same from the past two seasons. Aggressiveness in the secondary as well as on the defensive line.
"Defensively, they do what they do. Pat Narduzzi is a really good defensive football coach. Our fans probably don't want to hear that but he is a really good defensive football coach... they do a great job from a coverage and front standpoint, there's some genius in the simplicity of it but it is really difficult to go attack because they move their d-line a lot, they're a heavy pressure team," Brown said.
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