West Virginia head coach Neal Brown saw what he wanted out of his team in a 24-6 win over TCU.

The Mountaineers played with the effort and physicality that he wants to see on a consistent basis while dominating an opponent that had been playing its best football coming into the game. That was the message to his team all week that it matters what you put on tape.

The end results couldn’t have been better.

“I thought what we put on tape today was West Virginia football,” Brown said.

The win moved West Virginia to 5-3, matching last season’s win total, with two games remaining. The Mountaineers came into this season hoping to showcase that they’re one of the nation’s most improved teams and to date they have had a chance to win in the final minutes of every game this season.

Granted, they were unable to win three of those but the signs of improvement are there. And the coaches believe the last two home wins over Kansas State and TCU are how he Mountaineers want to play the game moving forward. Certainly a promising sign.

“We’re figuring it out. I don’t think we’ve arrived by any means but the product we put on the field was really good,” Brown said.

Some of that improvement can be pinned on how the players attacked the off-season given the difficult circumstances, while others can be attributed to how the coaches were able to add players to the program that have made a significant difference through recruiting.

One of those has been Arizona linebacker transfer Tony Fields, who leads the team in tackles and has already recorded 10+ stops in five different games.

“This whole program has bought into what coach wants to do. I haven’t really been a part of anything like this so it makes winning and everybody holding each other accountable and everybody coming in ready to play makes you want to show up,” he said.

That quote alone speaks to the most important things in this transition. That’s the overall buy-in of those on the roster now in the second year.

“Our guys are understanding the expectations we have in all three phases and I think our culture is improving. It’s not exactly where we want it but it’s getting better,” Brown said.

The win keeps West Virginia in a seemingly wide open Big 12 Conference race with two games left, which is all the coaches can ask for at this stage. Now, they will enter a bye week looking to recharge their batteries before hosting Oklahoma and then closing at Iowa State.

They’re not quite where they want to be yet, but there have been a lot of encouraging signs. Saturday was just the latest example in what those around the program hope to be many more to come.

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