College Football Expert Phil Steele High on Neal Brown, Mountaineers

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – If you want to see West Virginia sitting a little higher in the preseason standings you might want to drive over to your local Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million and pick up this year's Phil Steele College Football Preview.

The college football expert believes the Mountaineers are capable of a middle-of-the-pack finish this season.

"I picked them sixth in the Big 12 and everybody else has them eighth or even ninth so for my magazine accuracy I need them to play very well," Steele told our Dan Zangrilli on last weekend's Mountaineer Insider Podcast.

Steele didn't have very high expectations for West Virginia last year with the low number of returning players and a new coaching staff, so Neal Brown and the Mountaineers actually exceeded what Steele thought WVU was capable of doing.

Steele said the Mountaineers' late-season road wins at Kansas State and TCU were impressive.

"Coming into the year, you had a brand new head coach with only three returning starters on offense and four on defense playing in the Big 12 … I know they were coming off an 8-4 season, but I didn't expect them to contend for a bowl season and there they were at the end of the season," Steele said. "I thought Neal Brown got more out of this team than expected last year so that's why I'm bullish on them."

Steele likes the fact that West Virginia has experienced quarterbacks in Austin Kendall and Jarret Doege and a defense that features some quality returners up front led by the Stills brothers, Darius and Dante.

"I love their defensive line play," Steele said. "With Darius and Dante Stills inside at the tackle spots, Taijh Alston at defensive end and if they can get VanDarius Cowan 100% healthy he's got a chance to be a great player.

"I think that could be a very good place to start defensively and then you look at the linebacker corps with Josh Chandler and Dylan Tonkery. Chander was a guy Neal Brown was high on last preseason when I talked to him, and he turned out to be the No. 2 tackler on the team," Steele said.

He continued, "Sean Mahone is a potential NFL player at safety; the cornerbacks are new, but Dreshun Miller and Jackie Matthews are a couple of top-notch juco guys so I think the defense could be in a lot better shape than last year."

Offensively, Steele believes Doege and Kendall are capable of getting the job done.

Doege came on and led the Mountaineers to a pair of late-season road victories at Kansas State and TCU and completed nearly 66% of his pass attempts for 818 yards and seven touchdowns.

Kendall led WVU to an impressive early season win over NC State and passed for 1,989 yards and 12 touchdowns before giving way to Doege.

"I think they have two quarterbacks with experience now as opposed to last year when there was very little experience," Steele said. "The receiver corps looks good with T.J. Simmons and Sam James, but the biggest question mark I have has to be the running game.

"The running game last year disappeared. There were a couple of games when they ran the ball, but for the most part, if you take away the NC State and Kansas games, they averaged just 51 yards running the ball. There's got to be improvement, and I think the pieces are there."

As for the Big 12, Steele thinks Oklahoma, Texas and Oklahoma State are the teams to beat.

In Steele's opinion, the Sooners have the potential to field a top 20 defense in 2020, and they will be unveiling the nation's No. 1-rated quarterback recruit in Spencer Rattler.

Texas with quarterback Sam Ehlinger and a defense that features nine returning starters will contend, as will Oklahoma State with perhaps the Big 12's two most explosive playmakers in running back Chuba Hubbard and wide receiver Tylan Wallace.

Steele also likes what the Cowboys have returning on defense with 10 starters back.

Besides West Virginia, Steele believes TCU is capable of surprising people. He points out that veteran coach Gary Patterson usually bounces back strong following a losing season, and Patterson should have another strong defense and an improved offense with sophomore Max Dugan at quarterback and an impressive stable of young running backs.

Steele mentioned that Iowa State will always be a factor with Matt Campbell coaching the Cyclones, but concedes a tough schedule that includes Texas, TCU and Oklahoma State on the road will be very challenging.

Baylor is a team that could see the biggest drop off with coach Matt Rhule now in the NFL and the Bears ranking 89^thin the country in overall experience.

At any rate, you can put Steele in the category of those who believe college football will be played this fall.

"I think people are going to start wearing masks across the country and when the (COVID-19) numbers drop a little bit I think football is very important to the country, and I think we're going to see football played in the fall," he said. "If it turns out to be just conference schedules or a reduced amount of games and they can push it back a couple of weeks I'm fine with that. As long as we're playing conference games I'm good."

Steele said talking to all of the coaches has really fired him up this summer.

"It didn't matter if they had zero spring practices or two spring practices, they'd have their teams ready for the fall," he said. "If you put the ball on the field they are going to be ready to play and that was pretty much universal among every college football coach I talked to.

"That's why I think, no matter what happens these next couple of weeks, if they put the ball on the field in early September or even late September these guys are going to have their teams ready to go."

Steele's 352-page magazine is certainly ready to go.

He went to press a lot later than normal on July 8, and only 50,000 issues were printed instead of the normal 200,000.

If you don't have the two bookstores nearby, Steele said his website PhilSteele.com is also accepting online orders.

Schedule

College Football Expert Phil Steele High on Neal Brown, Mountaineers

Players Mentioned

Taijh Alston

VanDarius Cowan

Jarret Doege

Sam James

Austin Kendall

Sean Mahone

Jackie Matthews

Dreshun Miller

T.J. Simmons

Dante Stills

Dylan Tonkery

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