Quick Hits: Brown Details What Went Wrong in 2022 + What Needs Fixed

WVU head coach Neal Brown met with the media on Monday afternoon.

The 2022 season

"It wasn't good enough. It's on me. I accept it. It's not something I shy away [from]. I'm not trying to sugarcoat that. It wasn't good enough. I'm proud of how our guys finished - winning two of the last three. I am proud of that. Beating Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, those are big wins. But we weren't consistent enough. I know that."

What needs to be fixed

"The three areas that we have to fix, I call them the three 'E's'... is we've got to eliminate the errors. Too many turnovers and too many penalties on the offensive side of the ball. And several of those at critical times. We've got to be able to clean those up. Second 'E' is Efficiency - if you look at our P&10, which is a term for our first play in a series...we've got to be much more efficient there and then on 3rd and medium. The third 'E' is explosives. We regressed in that. We had been kind of steadily building but we regressed in that."

Why Sean Reagan is moving back to coaching QBs

"I think sometimes when we talk about coaching, we get caught up on stats and things like that. When I'm looking at coaching, I'm looking at who maximizes talent. Who gets the most out of their guys? A lot of publicity is given to guys that coach these phenomenal players. Well, other than managing expectations, coaching great players isn't overly difficult. Who gets the most out of the guys that are in the room? Who maximizes talent? Who can develop? And I really think along the way and I'll even go to the guys that we've had here, I really think when he coached quarterbacks he maximized what they were. There's a high level of trust with him."

Defensive problems

"Our issues were pass defense) gave up way too many explosives), we didn't create takeaways, and our third down defense in the games we lost wasn't good enough. When things go wrong, you start really looking and saying, 'why'? I think the easy thing to do is and you see this a lot of times across the football landscape...the easiest thing is let's just start firing people. And I'm not saying that's the wrong reaction all the time but I don't think that's the right answer in a lot of cases because you see a lot of mass firings and then do they get better or not? There's a lot of things that go into that. So, when I started really kind of evaluating where we were defensively, I get to this is we need to win now. Ya'll have wrote about it. I think that's fair. We need to have a winning season. After going through and really evaluating everything, the best thing, in my opinion, is consistency. We've got to coach better on the defensive side of the ball. I think there's no question about that. The portal hurt us last year. More so than I probably realized. Probably started realizing once we got into fall camp, but it hurt us. We lost, what? Four or five starters in the portal? In '22 we simply weren't good enough. But you don't forget how to coach in a one-year period."

Differences with Chad Scott at OC

"I think Graham [Harrell] brought us some system things in the pass game as far as how he tought it and the easiness of learning it. I thought that was helpful. I think we found who we are in the run game. What we've got to do is we've got to build off that. We really expect that to be a strength. If you look at who we return offensive line-wise. Who we return in the backfield..we really feel like that's going to be a strength."

Who will call plays offensively

"Obviously, I've done it for a long time. So, last year was the first time I've never done it...or haven't done it since 2008, I guess? [Sean] Reagan has play-calling experience, but Chad [Scott] is going to gain experience in the spring. That's something we're going to evaluate post-spring of kind of where we're at. It's not something I'm trying to avoid. It's really kind of a wait-and-see. I want to give Chad some opportunities in our spring scrimmages to see how he does. And really, he'll be able to tell me as much as I'll be able to tell him. And at the appropriate time, I'll tell you when we make that decision what it looks like."

What the WR room needs, if anything

"I think you're going to see two guys make big jumps - Jeremiah Aaron and Cortez Braham. Almost every junior college player that I have ever taken has taken a significant jump from year one to year two. I really believe those two guys will make big jumps. I think Rodney [Gallagher] will have an opportunity to play early. Maybe even Traylon Ray depending on when he gets here. And then there'll be somebody in that room that we're not talking about right now that'll make [that jump]. Who that will be? I don't know. I'd be speculating. With all that said, we still need to add one more. Speed's a premium. If we can find that, we would prefer to add that."

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