Quick Hits: Disappointment Level, Communication Issues, Senior Day Emotions + More

WVU head football coach Neal Brown discusses the final home game of the season.

Schuyler Callihan | Nov 18, 2024

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West Virginia Mountaineers

West Virginia head football coach Neal Brown met with reporters Monday afternoon for his weekly press conference. He discusses what went wrong in the loss to Baylor, provides an injury update, and takes a peek ahead at this week's matchup with UCF.

What went wrong versus Baylor

“We played really poor complimentary football. Didn’t play very well on special teams. Played poorly on defense. Did some really good things on offense, but in critical points there in the third quarter in a one-possession game, we didn’t make the plays necessary to tie the game up.”

Handling then emotions of Senior day

“It’s one of the things in college athletics I think we have all wrong. I’d be a proponent of doing all of your senior stuff at the beginning of the year. There’s a couple reasons for that. Number one, then most important reason I would do it at the beginning is because everybody’s healthy, and you do it in one of your early home games, either your first or second home game of the year. Second thing is there’s still a lot in front of you when you’re doing that, so it wouldn’t be quite as emotional. We’ll start training our guys tomorrow. I think it’s a really tough deal. You think of all the things with Senior Day compared to a normal game. First of all, you get your name called. We don’t necessarily do starting lineups like in basketball, where you run through a tunnel of whatever it is. It’s the only time in your career your family is waiting for you. That’s emotional, and it could be emotional if they don’t have family because of travel precautions or whatever. And then, there’s a little bit of flashback. The days are long, but the years are fast. I think you have to train yourself as you go about it throughout the week. We’ll have several guys that’ll walk. I wouldn’t read too much into if somebody walks that has eligibility left. I don’t filter that. If they want to walk for Senior Day, they’re going to walk for Senior Day. I’m not trying to talk anybody in or out of it.”

The pass defense continues to be an issue

“I think that I would be wasting air if I got up here and tried to say it wasn’t a deficiency. It’s been a deficiency all year, right? What you have to do is you have to continue to work on it. The frustrating thing is the inconsistency of it. There’s times where we match routes and do those type of things and cover, man cover, zone coverage, and execute it. And then there’s times where we don’t. When you’re playing defense, it’s like putting a puzzle together. If you put all the pieces together and all of a sudden you’re missing two, well, it doesn’t look exactly right. And it may be a critical piece. That’s kind of the way when you’re playing defense. If you don’t have eleven pieces doing their job and that offense finds the one piece that doesn’t, then it’s an explosive play. That’s happened too many times for us this year.”

Thoughts on DL TJ Jackson saying communication is still an issue on gameday

“My first thought would be is I’m not sure TJ knows what the communication is in the secondary. Maybe he does. He’s a really good player. He’s a smart player. I’m kind of being a smart aleck. But I think our box communication has been pretty solid all year. We’ve had very few communication errors as far as that’s concerned. We’ve had some issues getting plays in where we weren’t lined up on some tempo stuff. But as far as any change in fronts, we haven’t really had many of those. The biggest communication piece is when the picture moves and making sure that we’re all on the same page. I think that’s a struggle for every college football team because there’s so many motions and shifts attached to everything now.”

Traylon Ray being ruled out for the rest of the year

“I think similar to when Hudson (Clement) was out. We take a team approach. Now, we’re going to miss him. I think that by the time Traylon’s career is done here he’s going to be a really high-level player, and I really think the NFL is in his future. This is a minor setback. He’ll make the full recovery. It looked bad, but he’s going to make the full recovery and he’s in good spirits. We’ll miss him. But we also got some guys that we can plug and play. Preston (Fox) will take a bigger role. Jarel Williams will play a little bit more on offense. Justin Robinson needs to play more like he did against Cincinnati, not like he did against Baylor. And I believe he will. It will be a committee approach.”

Expanding on his postgame comments about losing at home to good teams

“Every time after a game, I come in here and tell you all exactly how I feel, and I think you’re doing a disservice to your opponent if you don’t give them credit. Do I feel like we could have beat Iowa State at home? Yes. Do I feel like we could’ve, should’ve won a game against Baylor? Yes. Now, we were decimated in the second half versus Kansas State - that doesn’t condone us playing poorly. We didn’t play well in the second half versus Kansas State, but we also probably had more injuries than I’ve ever had in my career in one game. I think anytime you get beat, you’re doing a disservice to your opponent if you just say you played bad.”

How disappointing of a season this has been

“You’d have to ask me in a reflective mode. I’m not in a reflective mode. I’m kind of in a disgruntled mode of how we played on Saturday and in a mode of getting our guys to play to our capabilities in all three phases at one time. Now, when I get into reflective mode in December, I’ll give you a quality answer. I don’t have one right now.”