MORGANTOWN — Where did football season go?
It’s already been a week since Thanksgiving, and we don’t know much more about West Virginia’s football team or the situation than we did when we lined up for kickoff against Penn State.
Oh, sure they’re not the 14th team in the 14-team Big 12 like the media expected, but we all didn’t really know that coming into the season mosquito?
Coach Neil Brown has crafted his team’s campaign beautifully to prove that…but that wasn’t the real question this season.
This wasn’t about how bad West Virginia is.
It was about how good the Mountaineers were.
How much progress have they made and will that ultimately determine whether Brown returns next season?
That hasn’t been decided yet, at least not publicly.
Some argue that his fate will be determined by the final two games of the regular season, a replay of the Big 12 rivalry with Cincinnati, which will be aired on ESPN+ this Saturday at 2:30 p.m. The two wins bring them to eight wins in the regular season with one bowl game remaining.
But will these two games be the deciding factor?
Athletic director Len Baker initially said his evaluation would be based on the direction of the program under Coach Brown, rather than wins, but that is still up in the air. Sure, two wins would make them look better, but are they making any progress toward national respect?
Brown has done everything right with the program, short of earning what was once a respected All-American status. How else can you explain the 14th pick in the conference? The fact that he hasn’t ranked since Brown was appointed coach?
Additionally, they seem far from being considered an elite team.
Of course, this requires a tape measure, so let’s try this out.
WVU played two ranked teams this season, in the opener against Penn State and in the final game against Oklahoma State.
He could twist and bend things any way he wanted, and he was great at both.
how do you know? The numbers speak for themselves.
WVU won the two games 97-35. There’s no way to express it positively.
In two games, he gave up a total of 1,022 yards and gained 638 yards.
It’s a deep hole.
This is not a question of whether progress has been made. Last season, WVU beat Oklahoma for the first time in the Big 12, narrowly losing the year before.
So they believed they could go to Norman this year and come away with a win.
I think when they finally finish totaling Oklahoma’s points and yards from that last game, probably early Saturday morning, they’ll find out they came up short.
He’s short, like Sammy Davis Jr. standing next to Wilt Chamberlain.
Wren Baker says decisions will be easier to make this year, and things will either make indisputable progress or there will be clear signs that changes need to be made. There is no doubt that I was expecting that.
It’s not happening. This team has had its ups and downs, and while there have been signs of progress, it doesn’t necessarily have a promising future. Because in today’s college football, next year’s team could look completely different than this year’s.
This is centered around solid young players and players like All-American center Zach Frazier, who could return next year, but like Baker, these players are considering whether to stay or leave. ing.
It’s a tough situation, but the next two games at home against Cincinnati and at Baylor are winnable.
Baker isn’t counting the wins, but he’s definitely counting on them to ease Brown’s return.
It’s important for him to see it through to the end. Because deciding to change the coach after the Oklahoma game is just as wrong as deciding to rest him two weeks before the Mountaineers’ 41-28 win at UCF. , and a 37-7 home victory over BYU.
Indeed, Baker is currently compiling a list of candidates should he choose to go in that direction, but the conclusion to this story is yet to be written.