What Neal Brown Said Following the Loss to No. 8 Penn State

West Virginia University head coach Neal Brown provides an immediate recap of the loss to the No. 8 Nittany Lions

Aug 31, 2024; Morgantown, West Virginia, USA; West Virginia Mountaineers head coach Neal Brown calls for a two-point conversion after a touchdown during the fourth quarter against the Penn State Nittany Lions at Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium. / Ben Queen-USA TODAY Sports

The West Virginia University Mountaineers fell to the No. 8 Penn State Nittany Lions Saturday afternoon 34-12.

West Virginia head coach Neal Brown provided some insight on the lopsided loss.

Opening Statement

I appreciate the crowd that was here at the start and the atmosphere they gave. It was a great collegiate atmosphere.

First of all, I'll credit Penn State. [They’re a] good team. I’ll credit (Penn State head coach) James (Franklin), [he] does a really good job there. He’s done it for a long time, but we played bad football. I can sit here and talk for a long time but that's the deal.

You have three phases. You got to have offense, you have defense and you have special teams, and special teams is the only phase of the game today that we gave ourselves the chance to win. So, to say I am disappointed in how we played would be an understatement. We played really poorly, and it was on a big stage and we are very aware of that, and we played poorly. It starts with me. I am the head coach, and I am responsible for it. Then our staff, we didn't put our players in positions in some key times, especially in the first half I thought.

Our best players just didn't play very well. Outside of, I would say, (redshirt freshman linebacker) Josiah Trotter. Just watching the game and having a chance to watch it during halftime, I thought he played at a high level. (Redshirt senior safety) Anthony Wilson is much improved. Then after that, I don't think any of our players played at a level that is going be required to beat a team like that.

I’ll start with offense, is just very erratic – offensively early. I'll say this, I should've said this (first). (Senior offensive lineman) Wyatt Milum, who didn’t play in the second half with cramps and some really bad stuff as far as that goes, now he played extremely well. I hope the pro personnel people watch this first half. He played extremely well, but he didn't get to play the second half and that hurt us.

 First of all, let's talk about snaps. That's the fundamental and we talk about the center and the quarterback exchange probably more than anybody. That was a disaster. We had a turnover on the second series. We had a really good play that had a chance for a big play, and we snapped the ball at the wrong time, and then very next play, we don’t field a snap again and it ends up being second-and-15 or something like that. We just did not play with the discipline that’s required. And what I mean by that, is we only had one penalty in the game. That was a defensive offsides, but our alignments were not going like they should. On offense, we cut some routes short. We didn’t do a very good job in some communication things. Again, we’re a better group, so my expectation for this group is extremely high, and we didn’t come close, and we didn’t come close to meeting those expectations today and I’m in charge of it, but we have to execute as well.

On defense, is they hurt in space, and they’ve got good players, but we’ve got to do a better job of tackling in space and especially in the third quarter, we weren’t good enough tackling in space. And then, we had several opportunities in 50/50 balls, and they made those plays and we didn’t. And we should have had them in a better spot at the end of the first half too. That should never happen with 32 seconds to go.

I thought we had some opportunities in the second half to get in the game. We had two critical drops that would have been explosive plays. I think we have four opportunities for explosive plays, two in the first half, two in the second half, we didn’t make plays on and we made those plays last year and we made those plays all camp. We have to figure out that.

On defense, we had them on third and long maybe two maybe three times on an opening drive and we didn’t get them [off the field] and the quarterback really hurt us with his scrambling.

Bottom line is we played poorly… but hat’s not what we’re capable of.

Was the team too excited or anxious to play?

I don't know. If I knew, I would have prevented it. The worst thing about this, and I said this just a minute ago, when you see this coming, you can do something about it. Especially offensively, we have a better group. There should not have been this anxiety. There shouldn't have been this lack of execution, and there just was. We were anxious. We never got comfortable and we didn't execute. Listen, they have two defensive ends that aren't good players, they are great players. Especially rushing the passers. Number 11 (junior defensive end Abdul Carter) is a great pass rusher. But with that being said, we didn't give ourselves a chance. They did not necessarily beat us, we did not give ourselves a chance. Again, it wasn't young players. It was people that have played a lot of football here. So, we got to figure that out.

Wyatt Milum not playing in the second half

He locked up. We tried everything. It’s disappointing because theres no one on our football team that’s more prepared. He’s the first one on the building from a player standpoint every day. He does all the recovery stuff. He hydrates, he eats, he sleeps and he went into full body cramps. He’s never done that before. Now, he’s a sweater. It was really hot. Obviously, an intense game.