“It really kind of pissed me off because I really think it’s kind of lazy reporting in some senses,” Brown told ESPN on Thursday. “We won’t finish where we’re predicted to finish.”
“The decision goes back to, we’re in a year where we need to have success,” Brown said. “That’s not something I try to hide from. … Really, in a pivotal year, you fall back to your strengths. Last year didn’t go the way we wanted to. We underachieved, especially on the offensive side of the ball.”
West Virginia returns their complete starting offensive line from a team that averaged over 170 yards per game in 2022. That is it folks. The Mountaineers are small, not physical, and lack talent. As one anonymous coach in the Big 12 stated,
“the defense is legitimately bad.” As I said above, the offensive line is just fine if you compare the with a mid-major from the MAC. 2023 and Morgantown is not the time and place for winning college football and the wins will be hard to come by.
As of the head coaching of Neil Brown, in his 5th season (22-25), the Graham Harrell, offensive coordinator, the experiment of a pass first offense has been taken aback. Harrell has been replaced and the running game is key with the return of all the key runners to go along with the o-line. A more than lacking quarterback will hamper West Virginia as the starter had yet to be picked. That is not good as a freshman red-shirt quarterback is a recipe for disaster. Garrett Greene, a junior, has eyes on starting but that is not a given with that red-shirt Nicco Marchiol, a strong candidate.
As of Brad Smith, Mountaineer beat writer, Nicco Marchiol will be the starting quarterback for the West Virginia Mountaineers in 2023. Remember, college football is a business. Promises must be made and guarantees are a critical part of retaining a team’s best players. It’s not a particularly easy thing for anyone involved – particularly sports purists – to swallow, but it’s the world we live in today.”
Look for West Virginia to run the football, pass it when necessary, and try to stay in games at least through the third quarter. But do not expect the defense to do much three and outs in 2023. A rebuilding of a defense that was bad the year before is not the perfect way to get better. Expect no worse, but do not expect anything better. There will be some big time scores put up on West Virginia and Coach Brown will not only need to fight for his job in 2024 but also work at not getting fired before the end of 2023.
There are winnable games on the schedule for the Mountaineers but even if they split those games, look for a four win season at best. It could be as bad as a two win year and that is not acceptable in Morgantown.
(I will give a short preview of each team in the Big 12. A final win/loss prediction of the conference teams will follow before the first game of the conference.)
