With West Virginia leading 66-0 in the fourth quarter against Long Island, some might wonder why the Mountaineers would want to schedule a game against the clearly outmatched FCS opponent?

Well, the mere fact that the program was able to play 40 different players on the offensive side of the ball and 38 more on defense is more than reason enough.

These type of contests allow the coaching staff to get not only the second team players into the game but third team and even walk-ons that otherwise wouldn’t be able to play on Mountaineer Field.

“We got to play a lot of guys. Almost everybody in our program had a chance to get out there which gets overlooked some. I think some people wonder why do you play these games?” head coach Neal Brown said.

“Well 12 months a year everybody in our program is working for one opportunity to get out there and play on Mountaineer Field. Walk-on program is important to us and this game a lot of out walk-ons got the opportunity to get in and we played a lot of people for the first time," he added.

That is particularly important for young players on the roster who are still developing and not quite ready to contribute on the first or second teams. For one, it provides some hope for those players to continue to put in the work needed to move up the depth chart.

That was on display with West Virginia at essentially all levels on the offensive side as well as at key spots on the defensive side at linebacker and in the secondary.

And aside from hope, playing in games also provides some reality for those players, too.

“There’s a lot of video evidence why certain guys don’t play based on the reps they got. I think that’s important too because sometimes players don’t necessarily believe why they’re not playing and then they get video evidence and they see the difference between the guy playing in front of them and how they performed,” Brown said.

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