WVU is eager to silence the doubters
Greg Hunter/Blue & Gold News
Quarterbacks Garrett Greene (6) and Nicco Marchiol (8) are to battle for the starting job leading up to the season opener at Penn State.
Charlie Neibergall
Associated Press
Garrett Greene (6) is West Virginia most experienced quarterback and brings a running threat to the Mountaineers’ offense.
Photos: Associated Press
West Virginia coach Neal Brown begins the 2023 season on the hot seat and faces a difficult five-game stretch to open the campaign.
For the Observer-Reporter
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – At Big 12 Media Day, West Virginia left no doubt that it wasn’t happy being selected 14th and last in the conference’s preseason media poll and was intent on proving the world wrong.
But that was talk.
The time for action has come as coach Neal Brown welcomes his fifth team, one with 32 new scholarship players and with 13 starters gone from last year.
As they take the field, they must replace that chip they’ve carried on their shoulder with shoulder pads and begin the process of preparing for Penn State in a season-opening game in the intimidating surroundings of State College with more than 100,000 fans and a national television audience seeing if they can live up to the talk.
Brown, of course, left little doubt that he expected more from his team than most expect as he coaches to keep his job.
“I believe in our staff and in our players,” he stressed. “We’re looking forward to proving everybody wrong.”
His feelings run through the entire WVU locker room.
“Ever since West Virginia was a state, it’s always been West Virginia against the world,” said Garrett Greene, who is expected to be named starting quarterback sometime during preseason camp.
“Our team has embraced that. We love being the underdogs. Some of West Virginia’s best teams were counted out. We’re embracing that and shocking the world.”
Doesn’t matter who you speak with among the WVU players, the feeling is the same.
“I feel like we’re very disrespected,” veteran defensive lineman Sean Martin said. “We just got to prove everybody wrong and show what we’re about.”
“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,” linebacker Lee Kpogba added.
“We want to prove that to everybody, but you got to prove to yourself first that you can do it,” defensive back Aubrey Burks, a potential all-Big 12 performer, said.
And the proving begins with the first game. The strength and conditioning work of the winter and spring practice is history. There are a lot of new pieces who have come through the transfer portal who must be worked in, as players and as locker room brothers.
The task is daunting, for there has been only one winning season under Brown. He’s starting over with a new cast of characters in what is, essentially, a new Big 12 Conference with Oklahoma and Texas on their goodbye tour and Cincinnati, Houston, Brigham Young and Central Florida added to the mix with Colorado now waiting in the wings for next year.
WVU is solid on its offensive line and with its running backs while Greene and/or Nicco Marchiol will give the offense a different look than it had previously, a mobile quarterback creating a new dimension.
If Devin Carter can lead a totally restructured wide receiver group into creating a passing attack to complement what’s expected to be a deep running game built around Greene’s rushing abilities and CJ Donaldson’s power and pass-catching ability, the talk will not be merely words spoken into a whirlwind.
The major reconstruction will be seen on defense, where things continued to come unwound last season. The question is if the new parts that have been gathered can fit together into an air-tight unit or will it continually spring leaks that led to big plays last year.
There is much work to be done until it is a finished product and the schedule offers no chance of easing into the season with Penn State, Backyard Brawl rival Pitt, Texas Tech and last season’s national semifinalist TCU making up four of the first five games.
But they are itching to get started with the first game of the new year.
“This is the sun coming out,” Greene said. “We busted our butt all summer, now we get to play the game we love.”
WVU, throttled by a pass defense so bad that the only time the cornerbacks and safeties got near receivers was to shake hands at the end of the game, finished 111th out of 131 teams in the nation last year, giving up 262.67 yards per game.
The result of that was a defense that gave up 32.92 points a game as WVU finished 5-7 and without a bowl bid.
Despite that, as Brown has a new enthusiasm for the defense that has been rebuilt at WVU.
“Defensively, we are going to be one of the most improved units in the Big 12, if not in the country,” Brown said. “We have all-league type players at each level.”