Neal Brown Ready to Meet the Challenges Head-On

West Virginia head coach Neal Brown is leaning on leadership to get out of skid

West Virginia head coach Neal Brown held his weekly press conference on Tuesday. Brown, in his third season at the helm, is sitting at 2-4 on the year after dropping three straight games, including a 45-20 beatdown by Baylor on Saturday.

"At the midpoint of the season, obviously, it's not where we want to be," said Brown.

The Mountaineers are on a bye week and clearly, the team needs to regroup.

"I think it comes at a good time. Physically were' beat up. I think emotionally spent," said Brown.

"Frustrated group, just talking to players on the phone and text and then meeting with the staff. I think everybody in this building is frustrated. Nobody likes losing - that's obvious. I know our fans are frustrated," continued Brown.

"This is the way I always think about, it right or wrong, is we're in the entertainment business that's what we are and when the product's not good the people have an opportunity to complain, and that's probably what they're doing, and I don't blame them. It's no different when you go to a restaurant, and the food's not good or when you watch a movie and it's not good, or however you get your entertainment when the product's not good, you get complaints. But it's not entertainment for us. It's our livelihood.

"Our job is to get it fixed and it can't be reactionary. I think that's the world we live in - everything wants to be reactionary now. Well, you can't actually be that once you're in it. You have to find ways to fix it. We got to use this week. This is the way that I approach bye weeks, not only when we're struggling but when we're doing well. I think you reflect on what's going well because we had some good things. We haven't been as consistent, but we lost three games right at the end, and we had a bad showing on Saturday."

"So, you reflect what's been good and bad. I think you do it from an individual perspective. You do it from each phase of the game. You repair what we can fix. I think that's a big piece of it, you gotta repair.

"And then the last thing is readjusting the plan moving forward and so that's kind of where we're at. Reflect, repair and readjust. We got a lot of football left. We got half a season. Everything is doom and gloom right now. I don't think you approach it like that."

Although unhappy with the team's performance on Saturday, Brown seemed eager to get back to work, focus on the positives, and lead this program back into the win column.

"I'm not going to be miserable. I think right now is the time to lead. It's easy to lead when things are going well. It's hard to lead when things are going poorly and our performance on Saturday was poor. And right now is when we need leadership, not only from myself but from our assistant coaches and from the leaders we have on our team. I think it's a time you lock-in, and you focus on your people. We got to pull in our people. We got to meet it head-on, it is what it is, we had a bad performance. I don't think you avoid it you meet it head-on and we go about our work but it's going to be a challenge. But it's doable. It's doable and we've played better football and we will play better football."

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