Neal Brown wanted to see a complete game out of his West Virginia football team in all three phases. The Mountaineers delivered that in a 31-21 win over UCF.
It was the message for Brown all week to his team, which had shown moments in each phase over the past couple of games but couldn’t put it all together. That wasn’t the case in this one.
“You know, we've won some games, but this is the first time we're all three phases,” he said.
Brown would have liked to see his offense be more explosive, but overall, the Mountaineers were able to control the ball with over 15 more minutes in possession and battled the elements in the first half. Still, the offense generated 318 total yards and outside the kneel-downs to end the game was 5-5 in the red zone.
The defense held UCF to just 348 total yards and the 172 passing yards were the fewest that West Virginia has allowed in any game this season. While the Mountaineers dominated special teams in terms of both the specialist and field position throughout the game with some big returns by Preston Fox on the kickoff team.
“And so, to hold onto the ball, and in those conditions have zero turnovers, and kind of control the game was good on offense. And then I was really proud of how our defensive special teams responded,” Brown said.
West Virginia won the turnover battle one to nothing and controlled the middle eight of the game pushing their lead from 14-7 to 28-7 and effectively ending any realistic comeback attempt for the Knights.
“Defensively, we bounced back. Really proud of those guys, proud of the staff. We thought we tackled well. We contained the run game. I didn't have any preconceived notions that we were going to stop it, but I thought we contained it,” Brown said.
But perhaps most importantly, the head coach believes that his team competed hard to get their sixth win and obtain bowl eligibility in the process.
“You know, they fought. And that's one thing, like, it hadn't always gone our way, but our guys always show up and they compete. You don't ever have to worry about them fighting,” he said. “You know, I did something yesterday where somebody asked if we would show up, and I said, there's no question. Like, our guys always show up, and they fight, and they competed, and so I'm happy for them.”
West Virginia pushed their overall record to 6-5 and 5-3 in the Big 12 Conference with the season finale at Texas Tech on deck. And there’s still plenty for this team to play for at this late junction of the year.
The Mountaineers have a chance to get a seventh win and finish 6-3 in the league for the second consecutive year, which the program has not been able to do since it joined the conference.
“And I think people have kind of overlooked that, but that's important to us, and so we still got a chance to do that,” Brown said.
Qualifying for a bowl game is obviously a big checkmark on the season and certainly beats the alternative but the Mountaineers also have a chance to go 4-0 on the road in the league.
This team isn’t where anybody expected it to be 11 games into the 2024 season, largely due to those inconsistencies in all three phases. And while Brown isn’t in a reflective mode at this point, he doesn’t hide from that fact and the hope is that the season can close with more consistent play.
“I'm happy we won. Go out here and hang out with the people I got in town. We got some recruits here. Worry about Texas Tech, and then whatever after that, and we'll worry about being retrospective, but not right now,” he said.
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