After winning more games than most people thought they would in 2023, West Virginia was as excited as ever to open up the 2024 season hosting Penn State, a top-10 team in the preseason polls making their first visit to Morgantown since 1992. The crowd was energetic and ready from the start, but Penn State managed to prevail with a big second-quarter outburst and controlled the game following an extended weather delay at halftime. After the game, West Virginia head coach Neal Brown did not shy away from saying his players did not play well in a 34-12 loss to Penn State.
“I’ll credit Penn State. (They’re a) good team. James (Franklin) does a really good job there,” Brown said in his postgame press conference. “He’s done it for a long time, but we played bad football. I can sit here and talk for a long time but that’s the deal.”
Franklin said in his postgame comments that his team excelled in some of the key areas they try to win every week. From the opposing locker room, Brown seemed to agree with that premise.
“You have three phases. You have offense, you have defense and you have special teams. Special teams is the only phase of the game today that we gave ourselves the chance to win,” Brown said. “So to say I am disappointed in how we played would be an understatement. We played really poorly, and it was on a big stage. We are very aware of that, and we played poorly.”
Brown take accountability as the head coach, saying the blame starts with him, as well as putting some of the responsibility on his staff for not having his players prepared to the level needed to overcome the Nittany Lions.
“It starts with me. I am the head coach, and I am responsible for it. Then our staff, we didn’t put our players in positions in some key times, especially in the first half I thought.”
Then Brown put the spotlight on some of his key players without mentioning any specific names.
“Our best players just didn’t play very well. Outside of, I would say, (redshirt freshman linebacker) Josiah Trotter. Just watching the game and having a chance to watch it during halftime, I thought he played at a high level. (Redshirt senior safety) Anthony Wilson is much improved. Then after that, I don’t think any of our players played at a level that is gonna be required to beat a team like that.”
Brown was complimentary of a couple of Penn State’s top defensive players, specifically Abdul Carter, before directing the reasons for the loss back on his team.
“Listen, they have two defensive ends that aren’t good players, they are great players. Especially rushing the passers. Number 11 (Abdul Carter) is a great pass rusher,” Brown said. “But with that being said, we didn’t give ourselves a chance. They did not necessarily beat us, we did not give ourselves a chance.”
West Virginia will get a chance to regroup next week with a home game against a much less intimidating opponent, the University of Albany (an FCS school). But every Penn State fan is hoping the Mountaineers play much better after that as West Virginia travels to Pittsburgh to take on their Backyard Brawl rival, the Pitt Panthers.
Penn State will be home next week for the home opener in Beaver Stadium. The Nittany Lions will host Bowling Green form the MAC for a noon Eastern kickoff on Big Ten Network.
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