Neal Brown not hiding from West Virginia issues, identifies key areas to fix
Neal Brown isn’t hiding from West Virginia’s struggles under his watch, instead taking a magnifying glass to the issues.
An important season for the Mountaineers and Brown is coming in 2023. Who knows which direction the program will turn if they turn in another disappointing campaign. Luckily, Brown has an idea of the areas West Virginia needs to fix next season.
“This is our first opportunity to get fixed,” started the West Virginia leader. “We’re not trying to hide from last year not being good enough. I think that, when you talk about getting things fixed, this is the way that we’ve been talking about it program-wise, and I’ll say it publicly, I think it starts, and this comes from our data and analytics company, it talks about the three e’s. First one is efficiency. We’ve got to get better at first down, third down, red zone efficiency. And then it’s about explosives. Last year we gave up way too many explosive plays, and we’ve got to figure out a way offensively to utilize our ability to run the ball to create explosives down the field. The third e would be eliminate errors. Offensively, that’s procedure penalties. That’s turnovers. TFL. Sacks. Defensively, it’s alignment issues, communication and missed tackles.
“You know, so we talk about fixing it, which is what we’ve got to do, and it a term that Hugs has used, but it’s efficiency, explosives, eliminate errors. So that’s what I had.”
At the least, Brown has a plan. Will it work? That remains to be seen. But Mountaineers faithful are ready to do some winning, and another season like the one Brown turned in last season won’t suffice.
Some other places the West Virginia leader is looking for inspiration is within the Big 12, looking to turnaround his program in a similar fashion to the TCU Horned Frogs, who of course went from afterthought to national runner-up in 2022, and the Kansas State Wildcats Men’s Basketball squad, who came within one game of the Final Four.
“I think the lesson to be learned from TCU is is how much better the guys on their current roster got between the end of fall 21 until playing in the national championship game. That’s the story,” Brown said. “But even looking at Kansas State men’s basketball. There’s carry over. The answer is yes, I’m giving you a long answer. The answer is yes. You study any of those groups that make a quick turnaround. I think Kansas State they’re fresh on my mind in men’s basketball. What a great year those guys had and they turned that roster over really quickly.”
Alas, no one is expecting West Virginia to make that big of a swing, but just for Neal Brown to show he has the Mountaineers on the right track. That’ll be the mission next season.