Neal Brown evaluates how West Virginia equates spring success to season results

Analytics has become a huge part of game planning in football, especially at the college level. Recently West Virginia head coach Neal Brown drew a striking correlation between the Mountaineers’ offensive drives and how it correlates to success for the team. Following the Mountaineers’ spring game, Brown explained how West Virginia has been working on transitioning success from the spring into the regular season by focusing in on drive starters.

“So, what we’ve really paid attention to is West Virginia since joining the Big 12; what’s equaled success? And then we’ve taken some other teams that are similar, that are in our league, and looked at what’s equated to wins for them. And it’s not perfect because, you know, the trend could change in a year,” said Brown.

“But the things that that we’ve really been focusing on is drive starters. Like that’s something offensively that we weren’t as good at, you know. The year before, we were really good on the initial play of the drive. We weren’t as good last year. So that’s something that we really emphasize with the players.”

Last season West Virginia’s offense wasn’t terrible, but it definitely could have been better. Through 12 games, the Mountaineers averaged 399 yards per game with an average of 5.5 yards per play. If anything, West Virginia’s defense was definitely an area of concern last season. The Mountaineers scoring defense was ranked 116th in the nation allowing an average of 32.9 points per game. That 32.9 was second worst in the Big 12, only behind the Kansas Jayhawks, who allowed 35.4 points per game.

Drive starters wasn’t the only thing Brown has worked on in the spring. The Mountaineers’ headman wants his team to get back to the days when they had an explosive offense.

“So that’s what we’ve done. We’ve got some goals that we want to hit; explosive plays being the same way. And you explain, this is why we’re doing this. This is why we’re measuring it, and here’s where we are today. I can’t guarantee you that we’re above 50 percent on drive starters. But I can say, if you look at the data going back to 2012, that’s been that’s what it’s been.

Whether or not Brown is able to get his team’s offense to be more successful on drive starters next season is still up in the air. But from the looks of it, the Mountaineers’ headman wants them to focus on resurrecting their high-octane offense of years past. And since West Virginia plays in the Big 12, a high-powered offense just might be their best defense.