What Neal Brown said Following the Win Over Oklahoma State

West Virginia University head coach Neal Brown gives his initial analysis of the road win against Oklahoma State

Christopher Hall | Oct 5, 2024

West Virginia University head coach Neal Brown / BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The West Virginia Mountaineers (3-2, 2-0) racked up 389 rushing yards in the win against the Oklahoma State Cowboys (3-3, 0-3) Saturday evening 38-14.

Head coach Neal Brown met with the media following the game and gave his immediate reaction on the dominating win.

Opening statement

[A] complete game. I thought it was dominant. We got a ton of respect for (Oklahoma State head coach) Mike Gundy and what they’ve done from a program perspective. I’m not sure how many times I’ve been here, but the last two we’ve come in here and been able to win and those are special wins. I thought our preparation staff-wise, player-wise, mentally, physically, emotionally, I thought our guys were ready to go.

I was really proud of how we handled the bye week. We asked them to go three days and they went, and we gave them some down time and they needed it, and sometimes time away is a real positive.

All I ask of this team is, ‘we’re focusing week to week.’ We talked about it at the press conference on Monday is just go 1-0 and just compete on every single play. Just compete. And that’s all I can ask for, and I thought, across the board, we competed today.

Going into it, the keys were going to be who can run the football better, who can establish it and then who can score points in the redzone, preferably touchdowns in the redzone. If you look at it, obviously we won the rushing game big. And in the redzone, we didn’t score touchdowns every time, but we were six of seven and the one we didn’t get was the kneel down there at the end of the game.

Defenses performance

I thought the first drive was huge. When they’ve had success versus us across the years, that’s where they’ve had success. And then, when you get in second and short they can do either. So we got them behind the chains early. I thought we did a good job, the best we’ve done all year getting off the field, and we got them in some third and longs, which is always helpful.

I know Oklahoma State’s fans are going to talk about Ollie Gordon – that dudes a player. For us to hold him to that yards (50 yards on 13 carries), I think says a lot about the will of our guys.

The Mountaineers offensive output

We have not ran the up until today how I think how we’re capable of, and it’s really a team approach. When you do as much in the run game as much as we do, and the perimeter and all that kind of stuff, the quarterback run game and the things that we do, it’s really an all 11. The quarterback is a factor. Our running backs, especially CJ Donaldson, we asked him to block a quite a bit today. Our tight ends, this is the best they’ve played. Kole Taylor, he wasn’t targeted like we normally do, but he blocked really good on the perimeters and our receivers were huge factors. To come in here and run for 389 is special.

Jahiem White’s breakout game

Its been as much about us getting him the ball in the right situation. I take ownership of that, and that’s what I told him. We spent some time together during the bye week, I just told him, ‘listen man, I take complete ownership is from a touch perspective and how we’re getting you the ball at the certain parts of the field, we got to do a better job.’ He not a good player, he’s a great player. If this would have been a different game, we planned to throw it to him several times too. But, once you get up, and we’re having success in the run game, and I just told the receivers and Kole after the game, “listen guys, I want you to enjoy this. Your stats are what you want them to be but theres going to be games where we’re going to have to throw it for 300 [yards] and your going to have multiple touches. It just wasn’t one of those games and the number one thing is to win. But Jahiem, I think he’s a great player. I think he showed that. He was a tough tackle today. And CJ, I thought CJ did a nice job. He had some tough runs but Jahiem really made some people miss in space.

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