What Neal Brown Said Following the Win at Cincinnati

West Virginia University head coach Neal Brown postgame quick hits

West Virginia University head coach Neal Brown. / Christopher Hall - West Virginia on Si

The West Virginia Mountaineers (5-4, 4-2) held off a late surge by the Cincinnati Bearcats and got their third Big 12 Conference road win of the season Saturday afternoon, 31-24.

Opening statement

Great win. Keeps us in the conference race. 1-0 in November. The tale of our season is going to be how we play in November. Second [consecutive] win on the road – third overall in the Big 12 overall on the road. Now, we got to comeback home and its going to be huge for us.

I really appreciate our fans. I thought we had a really great turnout. You could hear ‘Let’s go Mountaineers’ at the end of the time. Any time you’re able to do that on the road, that’s big time. I think that says a lot for our fans.

I think the points off turnovers were obviously the difference in the game. Excited for our defensive guys, its been a tough couple of weeks for them. We get two touchdowns and really, we’ve been close. We’ve had drops, we’ve had the ball bounce the wrong way, and today, it bounced our way. I think if you continue in life, continue to do the right things and buy in and you do the best you can, you’re eventually get a break and we got some breaks today, and we took advantage of it, and we forced three turnovers.

Defense

I thought we were really physical on defense. We didn’t tackle as good as we have and sometimes, we missed some tackles, but I thought we were really physical at the point of contact – safeties, linebackers.

We got pressure on the quarterback which is the biggest tell. If you want to force interceptions, that’s how you do it. You got to put pressure on the quarterback, and I thought our guys just competed.

Special Teams

We’ve quietly been really good on special teams all year. Our kickoff return, punt return – Preston Fox, who’s been beat up, I thought he was huge today. We won the field position battle soundly. I thought we dominated in that area. Those two phases really won the game for us today.

Offense

Offense wasn’t good enough. As the offensive coordinator, I’m really displease. But as the head coach, anytime you go on the road and win, it’s a good thing. Really, uncharacteristic for us. That’s the worst we’ve played in two years – just flat not good enough. Credit Cincinnati’s defense, they did some good things, but we couldn’t get out of our own way.