Brown Demands Urgency to Fix Mistakes: 'The Clock is Ticking'
Photo by Caleb Saunders - WVU Football
The first couple of weeks of fall camp is a time to evaluate, see what works, what doesn't, and, most importantly, teach and develop. That phase of fall camp is now behind us as West Virginia moves forward into the dog days of camp where it's no longer about teaching and developing as much as it is about going out and executing plays.
Over the weekend, the Mountaineers had their first scrimmage of camp and as always, there was some good and bad. Head coach Neal Brown said that the scrimmage was really about exposing some bad habits and knowing who needs to work on what.
"As coaches, we got on the sideline and let them play. We had some mistakes. Several procedure penalties, some defensive miscommunication, we've got to clean up our tackling but today's the first day we've tackled as well. I always tell our coaches, after the first scrimmage, that's when it starts. You get to that first scrimmage and now you know where you're really at. So, how much better can we get between right now until the 25th when we start Maryland prep."
The 25th of August is an important date for the coaching staff as that is not only when they turn the page to start preparing for the season opener, but it is also when decisions will be made on which players they will redshirt.
"It's really more of a decision about what guys do we want to play early to see if they're ready and what guys do we know aren't ready and let's put them in our developmental program. What they do is they start not going to position meetings and use that time to go in the weight room."
Those tough decisions are still a week away from having to be made, so in the meantime, Brown is concentrating his focus on getting better now. The Mountaineer head coach was pretty passionate about this in his most recent press conference.
"What I told them is the good news is we have three weeks. But now the clock is ticking. We have a real clear picture of what we got to get better at. Now, we've got to make that improvement with urgency. Like, we've got to get better right now. We've got to fix procedure penalties right now. We've got to tackle better right now. We've got to communicate better in the secondary right now. That's how that conversation goes and then we'll have all kinds of video evidence to show them. I always tell them, for better or for worse, your video always tells your story. If you tell me you're a disciplined guy, I shouldn't see penalties. If you tell me you're a physical player, I should turn on the video and have no doubt you're a physical player."
Coach Brown will speak with the media once again this afternoon to give an update on how things are progressing. Be sure to be on the lookout for our "Quick Hits" article which will have quotes from the head Mountaineer.
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