West Virginia finds energy in resilient road effort
West Virginia has been a resilient group this season and the win over UCF is perhaps the prime example of that.
The Mountaineers dropped consecutive games to Houston and Oklahoma State in very different, but equally disappointing fashions to see their promising 4-1 start slip to 4-3.
But despite a series of injuries and concerns, head coach Neal Brown felt confident that his team was going to be up to the challenge.
And that they were beating the Knights 41-28 in their most complete game of the season. In the game, West Virginia never trailed and led by more than 14+ points for the first time all season against an FBS team while dispatching UCF at home by double digits for the first time since the 2016 season.
“If you’ve been paying attention to us all year, we’ve been a group even when had things happen, we’ve always responded,” Brown said. “We’re really close to being a 6-1 team and now we’re close to being a 7-win team but we’ve been resilient. We’ve been able to bounce back when bad things happen.”
Despite dealing with a number of injuries on defense, at wide receiver and the offensive line, the Mountaineers didn’t miss a beat rolling up 450 yards and 41 points while forcing 4 turnovers. It was an effort that didn’t surprise Brown because he saw how his team prepared Tuesday and Wednesday.
This past week, West Virginia mixed up their practice schedule by going Sunday to flush the loss to Oklahoma State but when they resumed practice Tuesday the team came with strong energy. That is reflective of the leadership on the team on both sides, which is as good as it’s been in recent years.
“This is the best group we’ve had,” Brown said.
And the Mountaineers won this game by playing the brand of football that they want to be known for on both sides of the ball. West Virginia had just four penalties in the game, two of which were late, and played with fundamentals by running the football and controlling the clock with a +14 edge in time of possession while showing a killer instinct at the end.
“We’re tough and I talked about the mental toughness but we’re physically tough on both sides of the ball up front,” Brown said.
The fifth-year head coach spoke to his team Friday night and encouraged them to bring that same energy that they had in practice to the field and that the Mountaineers were going to be aggressive. It was a decision that Brown made Thursday this week and he followed through with that approach.
That was evident on the first drive of the game as the offense rolled the dice and converted on a fourth down deep in their own end and then did it again later in the game. Both drives resulted in touchdowns.
That attack mode mentality is something that must be shown from the top down and was critical as the Mountaineers offense looked as good as it has at any point this season.
“That was the mindset, anything close we were going for it,” quarterback Garrett Greene said.
Overall, Greene believes it was the best team effort of the season for the Mountaineers who now move to 5-3 overall and 3-2 in the Big 12 with four games remaining on the slate. It was a significant bounce back for a team that needed it, but the work is far from done.
Four games left and West Virginia is going to need to capture that same effort and energy for each.
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