Neal Brown Voices Frustration, Explains What's Going Wrong
Neal Brown is 17-20 through his first 37 games as the head coach at West Virginia University. It's something the fanbase is unhappy with, AD Shane Lyons is unhappy with, and Brown feels no different.
After Saturday's 55-42 overtime loss to Kansas, the vast majority of the fanbase wanted Brown fired. Losing to Kansas in year four is unacceptable. But losing to Kansas at home the way they did is an even bigger problem.
Tuesday afternoon, Brown was fired up during his weekly press conference with the media. You could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice how ticked off he is with the start of the season.
"Losing stinks. I don't think there's anything earth-shattering about that. When you invest time and energy into something and it doesn't go the way you want it to go, it's hard. I'm frustrated. I'm disappointed. You can probably sense that Saturday night. That same disappointment, that same frustration is with staff and players," Brown said. "And I get the fans' frustrations. I think back to my parents being teachers and we had season tickets at the University of Kentucky in the upper deck. Kentucky wasn't winning a whole lot. They've changed fortunes since but they weren't winning a whole lot then. And I can remember a lot of rides home in an old beat-up van with my uncle and some of their friends and bitching about how they played and being frustrated because they spent money on tickets and concessions and all those types of things and it didn't go the way they wanted it to go. I don't need to be explained that. I get that."
Not only did Neal voice his frustration, but he laid out some reasons as to why things have gone so poorly in the first two games.
"The thing that I think has got to be understood is that there's only one way to get it fixed. There's only one group of people that are going to fix it. The only people that are going to fix it are inside this building and the only way it gets fixed is through work. Nobody feels sorry for us. We don't feel sorry for ourselves. We're not throwing in the towel, we're going back to work. It's about learning from our failures. Why are we sitting here 0-2? Well, I think there's three primary reasons and I think there's a lot of underlying things. The first one is it's 27-0 in points off of turnovers. We've created one takeaway and we've turned the ball over four times. We've had inopportune penalties and we've missed opportunities. There was three fumbles that were on the ground Saturday night and we didn't get them. We dropped passes in the Pitt game. We've got to learn from those failures. We've got to clean up the penalties. We've got to get some takeaways. We can't turn the football over. And we've got to take advantage of opportunities when they arise.
"Really, to be honest, the focus is on us this week. I mean that with all due respect to Towson. I respect FCS programs. I finished my career there. I started my career coaching there. I very well understand the mentality that's going to be in that locker room to come here. This is their opportunity to come here on a national stage and show what they can do. But it's about us. It's about us getting better. Us improving."
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