Neal's deal: Five key items from West Virginia football: TCU

WVSports.com looks at the weekly press conference from West Virginia head coach Neal Brown and determines the five most interesting topics of discussion.

We examine what was said as well as what it means for the football team both this week and moving ahead as the Mountaineers navigate the 2019 schedule.

1—The next few weeks are for recruiting. West Virginia currently has 14 commitments in the 2020 class but that number will be growing in the next few weeks, possibly even in the next eight to ten days, if you take Neal Brown’s word for it. The Mountaineers are going to look to finish strong up until the first day of the early signing period which will span from Dec. 18 to Dec. 20.

The focus will be a mix of finding some offensive linemen, defensive backs and pass rushers and Brown has been encouraged by the results from the commitments that are currently in the fold in the class with their season results.

While Brown didn’t get into numbers, that opens the next two weekends after the game at TCU for official visits during the Dec. 6 and Dec. 13 weekends to put the finishing touches on what the program is expected to sign during that early window. Now one interesting aspect is that Brown certainly didn’t close the door on potential transfers and said that the plan is for West Virginia to save one or two for those instances in order to provide an immediate boost at positions of need.

Still, the focus is going to shift rather quickly from the current season to the future and the coaches are prepared for it.

2—Shifts in practice schedule. Numbers, or a lack-thereof at positions on the roster, have forced the Mountaineers to make adjustments to how they have practiced down the close of the season. That has shifted the focus to shorter, more efficient efforts with less hitting and more emphasis on walk-throughs. However, that has given things more of a false sense of security at times with the Mountaineers going up against an injury depleted scout team. It’s not something that is unique to West Virginia but it certainly has been an on-going story line behind the scenes.

Now, some of this is going to be addressed by recruiting and players getting back to health in the off-season but it’s a real problem that has at least been an inconvenience this season. The goal is and has been to continue to improve every single week and for the most part that’s still been happening.

3—Missing bowl practices isn’t optimal. West Virginia is almost assuredly not going to a bowl, unless they somehow are able to win the TCU game, and then enough bowl slots open up for teams at 5-7, and then the APR of the Mountaineers are high enough to give them one of those. So as you can see, it’s not a likely circumstance to occur even if the program gets a win against the Horned Frogs.

So assuming the program doesn’t qualify for a bowl would be the safe route at this stage. With that assumption, the biggest loss is that the program isn’t going to have practices leading up to bowl games.

Now, the biggest detriment in that is that the Mountaineers are going to not be able to focus the vast majority of those efforts on development of the young guys in the program for the future. The misnomer in today’s football is that those 15-practices you’re allotted as given for full-out efforts with the entire team to get them extra work when in reality it doesn’t actually occur that way. For Neal Brown, he admitted that getting all 15 in is often a challenge and those practices often aren’t even in pads for those participating in the bowl game as it is treated as a reward.

The real gain is that those developmental players get 20-30 minutes a session at full-go which is key not only for their growth but for the football team at large.

4—Kwantel Raines future. Well, Brown hadn’t talked to him yet but it seems that the future of the redshirt freshman linebacker/safety is very much up in the air after not dressing against Oklahoma State. The former four-star prospect is more of a tweener at the college level which puts him stuck between two positions and it will be interesting to see what is the next move here. If Raines elects to stay with the program will he stay at spear or potentially make a move down to one of the linebacker spots or will he be yet another name that goes into the ever-growing transfer portal?

For now, it appears that both options remain on the table and in the end it has to be Raines that makes that decision. We’ll see how this one plays out.

5—This is one of Brown’s favorite weeks of the year. The goal of every college football player is to make it to the professional level and this week will be a peek into what that could be like for the West Virginia football team. There are no classes and the focus this week will be primarily on football with the Mountaineers full-speed ahead to TCU. As part of that, there will be number of team building activities and dinners for the team and players as a way to celebrate the holiday season.

This hasn’t been the result that Brown wanted for his football team but he still wants to take some time to recognize the journey on the first stage of the climb in his first year with the program.

WATCH: West Virginia Mountaineers Football | Neal Brown Press Conference 11/25

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