WVU draws marquee TV slot at OSU, Brown hopes team can peak by next Saturday

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Big 12 Conference has announced that next Saturday’s WVU-Oklahoma State contest in Stillwater will kickoff at 3:30 p.m. eastern and will be televised by either ABC or ESPN.

West Virginia enters a bye week after their 56-10 win over Eastern Kentucky. Oklahoma State was originally scheduled to face Tulsa last Saturday but that game has been rescheduled for September 19. Brown was pleased with the Mountaineers’ overall performance in the opener but he knows the standards will be higher as they enter the heart of their conference schedule.

“Our discipline and our attention to detail must improve once we get into league play,” Brown said.

The Cowboys are the last team to defeat the Mountaineers. They did so on Senior Day last November in Morgantown in a 20-13 defensive struggle.

“Both of us have a ton of people coming back. Schematically, neither side is probably going to make a whole lot of changes. I think there is a lot of familiarity there just because we played so late in the season last year.”

Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy

In a one-sided season opener, West Virginia’s offensive and defensive game plans were pretty basic against EKU.

“We ran a lot of plays offensively — 86 and I think we maybe had 90 called once you take out penalties. But we called basically everything we planned to coming into the game. We were pretty simple and that is what we wanted to do. A lot of that was due to the first game. Some of that was due to the youth that we were playing,  a lot of guys were in their first action.

“Defensively, there were not as many calls. We had 49 countable snaps. On purpose, we did not show a whole lot defensively.”

In a unique preseason, Brown says the original plan was to build up towards the start of league play.

“The nature of the way the calendar was laid out, we treated this like a first game don’t get me wrong.

“We tried to set the 26th as our point to get where we are ready football-wise. That’s how we have gone about our preparation. Just from a staff standpoint, our conditioning and physicality in practice and all of those type of things, going into the 26th. It will be a mix of a normal bye week and a camp-style practice. We will practice at least four times this week and we’ll do a lot versus each other.”

In Saturday’s season-opening win, true freshman signal caller Garrett Greene made his Mountaineer debut. He completed 3-of-4 passes for 43 yards and gained 33 yards on 5 carries.

WVU QB Garrett Greene (Photo by Caleb Saunders/WVU Football)

“I was glad we got to play him. That was the hope going into the game that we would get to play him some. He was up and down. He only made one really bad decision. The time I got on him was because he kind of danced on the sideline a little bit, which when you are up at that score, you don’t need to do that. But he plays the game with great energy.

“He has extreme competitiveness, which is a positive. He got the ball out of his hands. He ran the ball effectively. His first play wasn’t very good. He got hit and I think he learned from that. But he got a lot of snaps. For a true freshman in his first playing time, I was glad he got in. He will play a lot of football here.”





More Sports

Sports
Integrating new players, coaches a focus for Herd at start of spring practice
Head coach Charles Huff says learning who his team is a critical component of spring football.
March 28, 2024 - 8:47 am
Sports
Class AAA Boys Basketball All-State List
State champion Shady Spring lands two on first team, including captain Ammar Maxwell.
March 28, 2024 - 8:42 am
Sports
Montague & Nutter each drive in four runs as Morgantown rallies past University, 8-6
The Mohigans took their only lead of the game in the sixth inning with Caleb Nutter's 3-run double.
March 27, 2024 - 9:59 pm
Sports
Greene strives for improved accuracy through extra emphasis on fundamentals, mechanics
West Virginia quarterback Garett Greene felt he could've gotten more out of the 2023 season, and his completion percentage is a major reason why.
March 27, 2024 - 7:58 pm