The Million Dollar Question: Why Does WVU Keep Falling Flat on the Big Stage?

West Virginia is now 3-16 against top-25 opponents. Not great news with another ranked team coming to Morgantown this weekend.

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

The losses against top 25 opponents continue to pile up and in fact, it's now 16 defeats in 19 opportunities for Neal Brown as the West Virginia head coach.

A common theme in several of these losses is that WVU just continues to find a way to beat itself. Whether it's bad snaps (Iowa State and Oklahoma 2021), going 0/3 on critical 4th downs against Texas (2020), not being aggressive (Pitt 2022), blowing a double-digit lead late (Pitt 2024), or jumping offsides on 4th & 1 late against TCU (2023) just to name a few...

And as previously mentioned, last Saturday versus Iowa State was no different.

Brown on mood after the loss

'“Disappointed," Neal Brown said on Monday. "The table was set and we didn’t get it done. Sometimes I come in here and I talk to you guys on Monday and I’m over it and kind of moved on, that’s not where I’m at really right now. Iowa State’s a really good team, credit to them. They’re undefeated, top ten in the country right now. They do a tremendous job, but we just made too many mistakes. In a game that has so few possessions, you just can’t do things to beat yourself. You can’t have negative plays on offense and we had way too many of them.”

Brown went into great detail about Saturday night's mishaps, particularly explaining the game-changing scenario at the end of the first quarter.

The biggest factor in the loss

“We played poor complimentary football. Just some sequences to tell you what I mean…we take the lead and we’re up 7-0, they miss a field goal and we drive down don’t convert a third down, have a chip shot field goal that we miss. What we need to do right there is defense put out the fire, still maintain the lead. We have a miscommunication, they hit an explosive, and bang it’s 7-7. Really poor complimentary football right there. Offense, defense, special teams not feeding off one another.

"Then we come back and get a punt inside the ten," Brown continued. "(If) we hold them down, they punt, we’re playing on a short field. That’s not what happens. They go on a marathon drive and score a touchdown. Next possession what complimentary football should happen is the offense goes down and answers and makes that a tie game going into the half. We went out and didn’t convert a third down, we kick a field goal and make it this time but it’s 14-10.

"Come out of the half, the defense gets two punts and offensively didn’t turn those into points, one of them was an interception.”

When will it turn?

It's year six, folks. This shouldn't be the case anymore. I mean, sure, it's not the end of the world that you look flat in the opener against a really good Penn State team, but for the same issues to arise in game six of year six? How much more time is needed for these self-inflicted mistakes to go away?

At some point (maybe we're already there) it all points to this coaching staff not being capable of getting the job done. No one is expecting WVU to win well over 50% of matchups versus ranked teams, but 15.7% is not acceptable. And when you dig a little deeper, the three wins he does have aren't all that impressive. Kansas State finished 4-6 in 2020, Virginia Tech finished 6-7 in 2021, and Iowa State went 7-6 in 2021.

There's always a lack of focus, execution, and ability to make in-game adjustments, and the mixture of all three is put on display way too often when the stage gets a little bigger.

It's time for Neal Brown to win football games against good football teams and once again, he'll have a chance this Saturday against No. 17 Kansas State.

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