WVU head football coach Dana Holgorsen provided some clarification on his Thursday night radio show on Metronews about comments he made earlier this week about fan support of the program.
“It goes back to what I said at my first press conference. This is not my program. It’s not our assistant coach’s program. It’s the state of West Virginia’s program. It’s the fan’s program. It’s the player’s program.” Holgorsen said.
The first year head coach drew the ire of some fans at his Tuesday press conference when he criticized the low turnout for the Bowling Green game. “Why did we have 20,000 less people out there this week than last week?” Holgorsen asked Tuesday.
Thursday night, Holgorsen stuck with his argument that fan support is important for every game.
“When you have games like Marshall and LSU where the environment is really, really, really good, that’s the expectation,” Holgorsen said last night.
Some fans were particularly upset when, on Tuesday, Holgorsen compared WVU and LSU, suggesting LSU was an elite program, adding, “I don’t know about this place.”
Said Holgorsen on Thursday, “I was just referring to ‘our place,’ and I’m excited about being at our place.”
Asked what kind of reaction he had from fans, he said, “I’ve had some emails which have been positive and negative… none of that really matters. Again, it’s about me going to work and trying to make it (the program) as good as I possibly can.”
The coach said the fan support is critical for the atmosphere and for bringing new players to WVU.
“We have a quality Big East opponent this week and we need to have a lot of people there. We have 12 recruits coming in that are being recruited by a lot of people and we need to make the environment as good as we possibly can,” Holgorsen said. “It’s just as simple as that.”