Despite disappointing effort, West Virginia aims to finish strong
To say that West Virginia head coach Neal Brown was disappointed with his team’s performance at Oklahoma would be quite the understatement.
The combined score of the past two meetings in this series was even with each team winning on a walk-off field goal, but this matchup was anything but.
“That didn’t resemble anything in all three phases that we’ve put on tape this year,” Brown said.
The Mountaineers lost 59-20 in the final meeting between the two schools for the foreseeable future with the Sooners departing for the SEC in both dominating and disappointing fashion.
“This game we really felt like was winnable. I know we were double digit underdogs, but really felt like we played our best football the past two weeks so that’s why I’m kind of blindsided by this,” he said.
The point total and the 643 offensive yards are the most that West Virginia has surrendered under Brown since he became the head coach in 2019, while the offense struggled mightily as well.
Related: PFF: Grades from West Virginia vs. Oklahoma
Junior quarterback Garrett Greene completed just 10-27 passes for 154 yards, while for the most time all season the Mountaineers were soundly beat up front.
“We can’t beat any quality teams if our pass game is in the shape it was tonight. It was probably as bad of stats passing as I’ve ever been associated with. We had drops, missed reads, missed throws and we got hit more tonight than we have,” Brown said.
On defense, the Mountaineers simply struggled to do anything to stop the Sooners as they converted 10-14 on end of possession downs to extend drive and exposed the unit in coverage. They were able to get favorable matchups in the backend by spreading out the unit, while West Virginia struggled to fit the run.
It was a disappointing effort, but a complete team failure. However, Brown doesn’t believe that this is any indication of what this team is about or how they could close the season.
West Virginia has a home contest against Cincinnati before traveling to Baylor to close the year. Those two teams are both ineligible for a bowl game sitting at 3-7 each.
“That won’t be how we finish. Nine games we’ve played football at a pretty high level, even the games we lost,” Brown said. “Penn State was competitive a one score game going into the fourth quarter, lose on a Hail Mary at Houston and the fourth quarter against Oklahoma State and all of that we played pretty sound football. Looked like a well-coached unit and played and competed.”
Brown pointed the finger directly back at himself with how he didn’t have his team ready to go and didn’t put them in the best position to succeed despite a week of preparation that seemed to show the opposite. But in the end, the results simply weren’t there in the game.
“To say that I’m disappointed would be an understatement at the least. Quite frankly I’m pissed and nearly embarrassed by what we put on tape,” he said.
It was a disappointing effort in a prime-time showcase, but the season is not yet over. And Brown believes that despite this setback, the Mountaineers have a lot left over the next two games.
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