What Neal Brown Said Following the Win Over Texas Tech

West Virginia head coach Neal Brown postgame press conference quick hits

The West Virginia Mountaineers (3-1) defeated the Texas Tech Red Raiders (1-3) in the Big 12 home-opener 20-13 Saturday evening. 

The crowd at Mountaineer Field

Not a great weather day, but I want to say this to our fans that stayed. More people stayed after we had our lightning delay against Duquesne, but the ones that stayed are really invested. It was super loud, and they had an effect at the end of that game. It really reminded me of the Iowa State game in 2021, I think. Iowa State was top-20, and it was a very similar day if y’all remember. Very similar day, and they had a drive with a chance to tie late. I thought our crowd made it really difficult for them late. I thought it was just a repeat today. They got really loud there.

Getting the win over Texas Tech

A lot of respect for (Texas Tech coach) Joey (McGuire) and that program. I feel really bad for their quarterback. He’s had some injuries. I hope it’s not as bad as it looked early, right when it happened. That’s a team that was the darling pick of the Big 12 early in the year. They were picked two and three in a lot of these polls, and so it was a really good win. This was an important home stretch. We knew it. We felt like if we could win our home games, it gives us a chance to win in the league. If you look at who performs well in the league, you win home games. We had a three-game home stretch, and we swept it. We went 3-0, beat our rival, and today, we beat a team that’s had our number. I was pretty open with that during the week. We beat them all now, the original 10 I guess. This was a team that had our number. It wasn’t pretty.

Offense's performance

I was disappointed with how we played offensively. I thought (redshirt freshman quarterback) Nicco (Marchiol) did some good things. I know that’s probably going to be the first question. Nicco did some really good things. The first pick was not good when the guy was in front of him. The second one was a strike that bounced off our guy’s chest. You’ve heard me say this, but that should be a fumble. A dropped ball should be a fumble, not an interception. I thought he made a big-time throw in the last series of the game when he went for the shot. I thought that was a great throw. For a guy making his first start in really poor weather and wet, I thought he did a pretty good job. We have to be better around him.

Pt. 2: Offensively, one thing we did was control the clock. Really, I felt like it should have been any from 20 to 27-3 at the half. That’s where we were really missing chances was in the first half. We’re driving, and we have Nicco throw a great pass. We dropped it in the end zone. We had another opportunity to take the ball in on a short field, and we didn’t get it done. I was frustrated there. I thought punt return was big tonight. I thought (redshirt sophomore wide receiver) Preston Fox played really well. I thought we blocked well. Clean football. I think we had three penalties in the game, and so I’m really pleased to go 1-0 in the league.

Sep 23, 2023; Morgantown, West Virginia, USA; West Virginia Mountaineers head coach Neal Brown walls off the field with his family after defeating the Texas Tech Red Raiders at Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium.  / Ben Queen-USA TODAY Sports

The defense holding Texas Tech to 13 points

Man, our defense played well. I trust those guys. They took a lot of heat in the offseason. They did, we did, but I knew we had a plan. We had a plan, and we’ve played good defense. Whether it was at Troy or here, we played good defense. We know what it looks like. We know how to get guys prepared. (Defensive coordinator/outside linebackers coach) Jordan (Lesley) and that whole staff on defense and our players really fought and competed.

Pt. 2: That's a group (Texas Tech) that prides themselves on being really good at offense. If you look at the numbers, they ran 81 plays for 321 yards, 2-of-18 on third downs. We’re proud of our group, and we were last year down in Lubbock. Our guys heard about it all week. They were getting kicked by me and patted on the back by everyone else. Glad you beat Pitt, glad you beat Pitt. Let’s turn on the film from last year at Lubbock. It wasn’t pretty. We came out tonight, and again, we’re a tough football team. We’re tough. People will say it wasn’t pretty and last week wasn’t pretty. Win, win.

On the defensive performance on Texas Tech’s final drive

Knew we were going to be okay. We didn’t want to give up shot plays. We felt like if we’re going to make them run it, which they didn’t in the first half. And credit to them, they’re good coaches too, and they saw what we were doing, we were playing a light box, and they came back. (Senior running back) Tahj Brooks is their best player that nobody talks about in our league. I think the kid is a really good player, and sometimes we tackled him well, and sometimes we did not. We’re not going to be the only defense that does that. They handed it to him a bunch in the second half. Only the run that he had over there on the sideline during their touchdown drive where he kind of ran over a couple guys, that’s really the only extensive run he had. They dinged us a little bit in the run game, but we never let an explosive pass get out. We wanted to make them work for it. If they were going to score on us, we wanted to make them work for it.

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