The Wide World of Dirt

My Mountaineer friends, what were your expectations going into this season?

Fresh off of a 9-4 season, it felt like Neal Brown’s patented “climb” was reaching the summit, ushering in the new era of sustained success that was promised.

Flash forward to week 6 of the college football season, and all that goodwill, all those positive feelings from 2023 are all but gone. 

I’ll be honest: I was really excited for this season. It finally felt like WVU football was over its era of mediocrity that has plagued them since 2019 (and for practically all of my fandom.)

To put it plainly, I expected another 9-4 season at minimum. 

I believed that — with Texas and Oklahoma darting to the SEC — the BIG 12 would be wide open for West Virginia to compete in Arlington for the Big 12 championship and a playoff bid. I really thought this, folks.

Now, looking at the rest of their schedule? I think a seven-win season is their ceiling.

Initially, WVU’s performance over Oklahoma State looked to finally deliver Neal Brown a signature win. That was the best performance from a WVU team I have seen since 2018.

I hoped that this be the win that builds some momentum because they had a tremendous opportunity with their upcoming Riot Bowl and the debut of our Coal Rush jerseys.

I have heard fantastic stories of Milan Puskar Stadium being one of the hardest venues in college football during a primetime night game, though I have yet to see this as a fan.

Cracking down on the Cowboys and Gundy was impressive, especially considering Gundy’s teams haven’t lost three straight games since 2014, a full decade ago.

Even still, they are WVU’s only unranked opponent during the final stretch where every Mountaineer fan knew the tough part of their schedule only started in Stillwater. That was when the perception of this season was still good.

Not to mention, the Mountaineers must travel to Tucson, Arizona to take on the Wildcats after K-State. By the way, the distance between Tucson and Morgantown is the longest between two teams in the BIG 12 conference by FAR at 2,079 miles.

Of course, the BIG 12 decides to make West Virginia — a BIG 12 member since 2012 –travel to Arizona for one of the newest conference members.

Arizona is no slack either; they have high-end talent including WR Tetairoa McMillian, a guy that will hear his name called on day 1 of the NFL draft. 

After UA is where you can realistically see WVU winning some games when they travel to Cincinnati before hosting Baylor, two programs that were projected to be in the bottom half of the standings and look to prove those projections right thus far. 

WVU hosts UCF in their senior day game. UCF was projected to be another bottom dweller in the conference, but they have exceeded expectations outside of their loss to Colorado.

Arkansas transfer QB KJ Jefferson leads the way for the Golden Knights by powering what has become a stout offense. That is shaping up to be another tough game.

Finally, WVU travels to Lubbock to take on Texas Tech, a place they have been absolutely horrible at under Neal Brown. (Even though I wish it were wiped from my memory, I will never forget the 48-10 disaster in 2022.)

This is a stereotypical Red Raider team: too all-gas-and-no-breaks with their offense led by junior QB Behren Morton & senior RB Tahj Brooks who feels like he’s been there for eons. 

While WVU still has the meat of their schedule ahead of them, they’re 3-3 with those three losses being really bad. Should we expect anything other than another six or seven wins? 

Look, even after how they looked against Penn State — who is the best team they will play all year — they were five minutes away from beating Pitt and being 2-1 with conference play set to begin. 

Instead they opened up Big 12 play 1-2 and were already facing a must-win against Kansas. While it was way tougher than it should have been, they pulled out a dynamic last-second victory. 

WVU has talent. They have pieces. QB Garrett Greene and RBs CJ Donaldson & Jahiem White have shown to be a very potent group that can give teams fits.

Can Neal finally let Greene play “loose” and find the right time to mix in Donaldson and White?

WR Hudson Clement was finally unleashed against Kansas’ secondary and took over. With a year of experience and finally having that “breakthrough game” under his belt this season, can he elevate this passing attack as a reliable number 1?

If not, TE Kole Taylor can certainly help. It seems he woke up this season, particularly against Kansas getting a huge TD and two-point conversion to get WVU within one score late.

Can talented second-year player Rodney Gallagher build off his game-winning (and first-career) TD catch?

The O-line may not be as stacked as previous years, but LT Wyatt Milum will be a top-50 pick in the draft, and much like Zach Frazier before, Milum is a tone setter and leader for this team. 

The defense has been much-maligned, especially in the secondary. But, do you know what unit has played hard and kept them games? Their D-Line.

Troy transfer TJ Jackson applies great pressure, earning 3.5 sacks to this point. LB Josiah Trotter and Tyrin Bradley Jr. have been tackling machines with the latter sealing the Kansas game by stripping Jayhawks’ QB Jalon Daniels.

West Virginia clearly has the talent, but like so many of the previous Neal Brown-led teams, they suffer from the same mistakes. Starting slow, untimely penalties, too much stalling, more break-than-bend instead of bend-but-don’t-break.

These mistakes were emblematic in our loss to the Cyclones last week. The Mountaineers honored former TE Anthony Becht by allowing his son (whom WVU never offered) to torch us while leading Iowa State to a convincing victory.

Then our coach asks the fans if they had a good time taking in the atmosphere of last week’s game after another brutal conference loss. What an embarrassment.

With all the talent it comes down to a question we have asked ourselves constantly over these last six years: Can Neal Brown coach to win instead of coaching to not lose?

History shows that isn’t the case. 

Despite all of this, I know I will still be there cheering on the Old Gold & Blue. I hope they put these thoughts to rest and show Mountaineer Nation and I the team we thought they were capable of being heading into the season.

That would be nice, wouldn’t it?

(Top Photo Credit: Ben Queen/Imagn Images)