Thursday Morning Thoughts: Take a Breath, Neal, You Deserve It

Fourteenth. That's where the West Virginia Mountaineers were picked to finish in the Big 12 preseason poll, as voted on by the media.

I never thought 14 made sense, especially with all the experience returning along the offensive line and the plethora of options that existed in the backfield. However, I was wrong too. I figured best case scenario would be finishing 9th or 10th in the league. When they dropped consecutive games in the middle of the season to Houston and Oklahoma State, it felt like that would be the tipping point. Instead, they overcame that adversity and won five of the final six games of the 2023 season, including a 20-point win over North Carolina in the Duke's Mayo Bowl.

Winning nine games in the year you were picked to finish dead last in a Power Five conference is extremely impressive. Folks can say, well, they benefitted from a lighter schedule with BYU Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF on the docket. Or well, they were a couple plays away from losing to Texas Tech and TCU, going 6-6. But they didn't. As the old adage goes, you are who your record says you are.

The Mountaineers fielded a good football team in 2023 and Neal Brown deserves more credit nationally than he is getting at the moment. Brown had a losing season in three of his first four years on the job and felt like a dead man walking. With a new athletic director in the fold, there was going to be immense pressure. And oh yeah, en route to coach your way off the hot seat, you've got to open the season up on the road at Penn State in primetime and then two weeks later face your bitter rival, Pitt.

West Virginia split those two games and beat Duquesne in between to go 2-1 in what everyone viewed as a critical stretch for Brown. That pressure returned following the consecutive mid-season losses and once again after the thumping they received from Oklahoma out on the plains. Each time, he and his team responded. They didn't hang their heads after the Hail Mary in Houston, nor did they let a two-game skid turn into a three-game slide at UCF. West Virginia won it's final three games of the year by an average of 14.6 points.

For the first time in a long time, there's some hope riding into the offseason in Morgantown. Whether or not this 2023 campaign is a step to greater heights in 2024 remains to be seen. But at this very moment, Brown deserves a tip of the hat and the full support of the Mountaineer fanbase. The last four years have been very trying for he and his family, as you could imagine. For he and his staff to fight through all the challenges and pressure to put together a nine-win season is remarkable. Finally, there seems to be a sense of security and that alone could allow Brown to have more success.

West Virginia Wins the Duke's Mayo Bowl

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