West Virginia football coach Brown adheres to mantra in late game situation

Neal Brown wants to be the type of head coach that practices what he preaches to his football team.

That was certainly on display late in the fourth quarter against Baylor when he trusted his team motto. The Mountaineers had the ball at the Baylor 26-yard line, trailing 17-14 and facing a 3rd and 2. After two consecutive Leddie Brown runs, the offense lined up and took a shot at the end zone.

The play was designed to attempt to catch the Bears in man-to-man coverage by bluffing the same tunnel screen that the offense had used multiple times earlier in the game. Each time the Mountaineers had gone to the screen, the Bears were sitting on it. This time, as that screen action was unfolding, the slot receiver would appear to be blocking only to release down the left sideline for a screen and go.

While it was originally designed for T.J. Simmons, he was out of the game with an injury, and that’s when Brown trusted in his own mantra. That mantra is simply ‘next man up,’ and it was important for the first year coach to show his players that he would trust in that even in a critical situation.

“You’ve got to show people. You just can’t tell people, you’ve got to show them so we called the play that we would call if (Simmons) was in there,” he said.

The receiver that got the call was Isaiah Esdale and for a moment it seemed to be there although the Baylor cornerback did an excellent job of not biting on the fake and the safety slid over. The end result was the ball fell harmlessly to the turf as an incomplete pass, and the rest is history from there.

The special teams unit was flagged for a delay of game and the 48-yard kick was ultimately blocked by the Bears effectively ending the upset bid. The decision to kick the ball in the first place, was another example of trust as Brown had noticed that Casey Legg had been consistent from the left hash.

Had the ball been on the right hash, Brown likely would have elected to roll the dice and go for it given that consistency issue from his first-time kicker as well as a better set of plays for that situation.

Still, Brown believes the end result of the pass attempt prior to that sequence was more due to a lack of execution than related to the call itself.

“We had exactly what we wanted,” he said.

The Mountaineers could have likely cost themselves the game by attempting to go for the home run, but there isn’t time for second guessing in the game of football.

The offense already had struggled to generate Brown also hopes that he has gotten the attention of his team by showcasing that he does in-fact mean what he says as yet another building block in the foundation he’s laying in Morgantown.

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