Neal Brown previews 'critical' week for West Virginia in fall camp
It’s a critical week for West Virginia in the team’s fall camp, according to head coach Neal Brown. The season opener against Penn State isn’t too far away, but that’s not the primary focus at this point.
With a primetime kickoff set for September 2, time is of the essence for West Virginia to get right. Brown wants the focus on his team, and solely his team.
In fact, the prep for the Nittany Lions hasn’t even begun.
“It’s the timing of trying to get your performance peak, that’s hard,” Brown said. “There’s people that are smarter than me that are helping me with that. You know, as far as the mental component and those things, I think we’ve got to get a handle on that. You know, I watched Penn State a little bit yesterday …
“This is all about us. We’re really not talking to our players about Penn State. We’re not doing any Penn State prep. We’re trying to get our guys ready for the season this week. But as far as where you can run your fastest and be your freshest, that’s why this week is so important because … there’s a different cycle you go into starting next Monday and Tuesday.”
This week could be critical for the quarterback battle between Garrett Greene and Nicco Marchiol as well. With no starter entrenched and a lot of questions on offense, Brown wants to make sure West Virginia is the best version of itself.
West Virginia needs to capitalize on upcoming fall camp week
West Virginia knows the regular season is coming soon. But as Brown alluded to, his team can’t look ahead.
“The challenge for a coach is when you know the players because they can see it, so like they go on a normal routine, like they’ve been up here all day, whatever the rules allow you to have right they have an off day, once a week,” Brown said. “But they know like today they’re here to have a break in the afternoon. They’re coming back in the evening.
“And tomorrow is gonna be the same. Well, Wednesday school starts right? And then Thursday, they’re gonna get on their school routine. And so they know they’re here all day. Tomorrow, they know they’re here all day. So, but they can see the light.”
Essentially, Brown knows his team has to get through the grind of camp. But it’s imperative they do healthy and efficiently because the preseason rankings don’t look too kindly on West Virginia right now.
“All the students are coming back, you know, we got Fall Fest on Tuesday night and I’m sure like, I’m not that damn old, so like I can remember the first week of school, you know, it’s pretty good time, right,” Brown said. “So the job of a coach is when you know that they’re starting to drift or they’re starting to like, you better be at your best.
“It’s about continuously challenging them to make sure that we’re not just getting through this but we’re getting better because of it. And obviously … this is a critical week. It’s a critical week and we need to be hard on them. We need to be tough on them and then we gotta get some calluses this week so we can be ready to go.”