Upset Brewing? West Virginia Feels Good About Its Chances vs. Penn State

The Mountaineers believe they can beat anyone if they stick to their style of football.

Schuyler Callihan | Aug 27, 2024

Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

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West Virginia Mountaineers

West Virginia is quite familiar with the role of the underdog. Anytime the Mountaineers are pitted against a top team in the country, or have the national stage against a well-known program, all of the attention and conversation shifts to the opposing team.

The same rings true when West Virginia comes out on top in those very matchups. For instance, if WVU does pull off the upset on Saturday against No. 8 Penn State, the majority of college football talking heads will talk about how Penn State just lost to unranked West Virginia. It won't be about the Mountaineers getting a signature win and possibly kicking off a special season in Morgantown.

In the grand scheme of things, none of it matters. The only thing the Mountaineers will care about is starting the season 1-0. In recent years, this would have been a daunting matchup for the Old Gold and Blue. They probably would have entered the game knowing a lot would need to break their way in order to get the W.

Not anymore.

The confidence inside Milan Puskar is at an all-time high in the Neal Brown era. Sure, it's a big game against a playoff contender, but there's a belief that leaving the field victorious on Saturday afternoon is possible.

“We feel like if we play our game then we’ve got a chance to win against anybody we’re playing now," head coach Neal Brown said on Monday. "We have a ton of respect for Penn State, but we’re going to play our style of football and we’ve really been working on that for probably the last 19 months now and we feel like we’ve honed that in even more so in fall camp. We’re excited about playing. The fact that we’re underdogs…we’re going to play with a chip on our shoulder, we’re going to try to play really physical whether that’s Penn State, Albany, Pitt, Kansas, whoever we’re playing week to week. I don’t know if we have a bigger chip on our shoulder because we’re playing Penn State.”

This team, as a whole, has been disrespected and overlooked for the better part of the last year. Obviously, there's some merit to that after registering a third losing season in four years prior to 2023, but it's something this team has handled really well. Yes, it's a massive Week 1game, but it's not just a one-game season where everything rides on this Penn State opener. It's just the first opportunity to prove the doubters wrong once again.

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