WVU Players Are 'Pissed Off' About Preseason Poll

Incase you missed it, West Virginia was picked to finish 14th in the Big 12 preseason poll for the 2023 season, also known as the new last place spot in the recently expanded league.

Coming off a season in which the Mountaineers won just five games, lost key players on defense, four of its top receivers, and grooming along a new starting QB, it's easy to see why the bar is set extremely low for WVU.

Do I believe they'll finish dead last? No, I don't. Neither does Neal Brown or his players and it's something they will undoubtedly use as extra motivation, as if they needed any.

"They're pissed off," said Brown. "They don't want to be picked there, so there's some emotion there. That's not how they view themselves. That's not how we view them in the building. We talked about it and now, it's about two things - you prove them right or you prove them wrong and we're going to go about our business proving them wrong."

What did the players have to say about it?

LB Lee Kpogba

"I feel like we could definitely use it to fuel us just showing that nobody believes in us. It basically just shows what everybody thinks about us. I could say right now that just being around the guys around that facility, I can promise we're not finishing last in the Big 12."

S Aubrey Burks

"We can only control what we can control. We don't make the rankings. The person who made the rankings probably don't play football. But as far as us controlling what we can control, we just got to win one game at a time and hopefully things change. We want to prove to everybody but you got to prove to yourself first that you can do it. We'll show everybody what we're made of."

DE Sean Martin

"I feel like we're very disrespected right now. We just got to prove everybody wrong and just show what we about."

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