West Virginia fell to No. 8 Penn State 34-12 to begin the 2024 season in what was ultimately a disappointing performance.
“First I’ll credit Penn State, good team. I’ll credit James (Franklin), does a really good job there,” West Virginia head coach Neal Brown said. “But we played bad football.”
The Nittany Lions outplayed WVU in every aspect. They had more than double West Virginia’s total offensive yards and they created five more turnovers defensively.
“To say I’m disappointed in how we played would be an understatement. We played really poorly and it was on a big stage and very aware of that,” Brown said. “It starts with me, I’m the head coach and I’m responsible for it all.”
The Mountaineers had both offensive and defensive woes. Offensively, they were ineffective rushing the ball, rushing for just 85 yards after rushing for over 225 yards a game on average last season. They also struggled on third down, converting just four times on 14 third downs.
Defensively, they allowed four passing touchdowns, as holes in the secondary were evident. They were unable to get to the quarterback, not picking up any sacks, and overall, they allowed five scoring drives of over 70+ yards.
Arguably, West Virginia’s best player, left tackle Wyatt Milum, did not play in the second half. Brown gave insight into what was going on with him.
“Wyatt Milum didn’t play in the second half, cramps and just some really really bad stuff as far as that goes. He’s played extremely well and I hope the pro personnel people watched his first half. He played extremely well and he didn’t get to play the second half and that hurt us,” Brown said. “He locked up (with cramps), we tried everything and he could not (play). And it’s disappointing because there’s nobody else on our football team that’s more prepared. He’s the first one in the building from a player standpoint, every day, he does all the recovery stuff, he hydrates, he eats, he sleeps and he went into just full body cramps. (He’s) never done that before.”
West Virginia can only look forward to bouncing back and improving at home against UAlbany next Saturday. Following that will be the Backyard Brawl, and then the Mountaineers will begin the conference, where there will be no margin for error.
D2 coach, D2 team and D2 results. Been that way for 5 years!!!
I wonder how much longer we have to endure this clown as the head coach. There has been litteraly zero upward progression since he’s been here. I for one didn’t buy into the preseason hype. Been down that road too many times with brown.