Neal Brown Reviews Maryland

After watching the film, West Virginia head coach Neal Brown revisits the season-opening loss to Maryland

On Tuesday, West Virginia head coach Neal Brown met with the media for his weekly press conference. The Mountaineers are coming off a disappointing season-opening loss to the Maryland Terrapins. After watching the film of the game, Brown went over some of the deficiencies in game one.

“Offensively, we had three turnovers. One of them on third and one. One of them in the endzone. One of them was a really poor decision on the first play of the drive,” said Brown. “We didn’t play physical enough upfront. Weren’t consistent at quarterback.

“Defensively, we didn’t play to the standard that we’ve created here over the last year and a half. Started very poorly. Didn’t tackle very well. We had poor communication that gave up over 120 yards of offense.

“Then, special teams, we had a huge turnover on punt return, and we didn’t kick off the ball very well.”

Brown didn’t mince a lot of words calling week one “a brutal reality.”

However, he did pull out some positives from the loss.

“Offensively, we started very fast – came out the gates really well. I thought our receivers won consistently versus man coverage,” said Brown.

“Defensively, I thought the third quarter we played like we’re capable of – that was the only quarter.

“We handled sudden change well, something we didn’t do as good as a job a year ago.

“Then, on special teams, our kickoff return unit highlighted by Winston Wright was special and really probably kept us in the game.”

West Virginia will begin to make improvements/adjustments with physical practices on Tuesday and Wednesday before going through a walkthrough on Thursday and what Neal Brown calls a “full speed walkthrough” on Friday.

"As we move forward, we've got to learn from it and grow,” said Brown.

West Virginia looks to bounce back Saturday against the Long Island University Sharks at 5:00 pm and streaming on ESPN+.

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