Photo by: Caleb Saunders
Brown: Ground Game Showed Signs of Life at Oklahoma State
September 28, 2020 02:31 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia coach Neal Brown said Monday during his weekly teleconference with Big 12 media that he thought his team ran the football against Oklahoma State much better than it did 10 months ago in Morgantown.
That's one of the positives his young football team can take out of last Saturday's 27-13 loss to the now 17th-ranked Cowboys.
Last year, West Virginia could barely get running back Leddie Brown to the line of scrimmage before he was swarmed by a host of Oklahoma State tacklers. That afternoon, WVU netted just 26 yards on 22 rushing attempts.
Last Saturday, the net total doesn't look all that much different (68 yards on 42 attempts), but Brown said those stats are very misleading.
"At the end of the game we had a bunch of negative plays through sacks," Brown explained, "but we ran the ball for 130-plus yards (gross) and that was a big improvement from what we did a year ago."
Granted, a lot of that was Leddie doing it on his own by breaking tackles at the line of scrimmage and running hard once he got into space, but at least this year he got to the line of scrimmage and was moving forward.
Overall, Brown thought there were some highs and lows with his team's performance up front. He credited the play of senior center Chase Behrndt and senior right guard Michael Brown, but the two tackle positions really struggled handling Oklahoma State's edge pass rushers.
Trace Ford's strip-sack of quarterback Jarret Doege in the second quarter resulted in Tyren Irby's 56-yard, scoop-and-score.
That was a critical play in Oklahoma State's 20-point, second quarter explosion.
"We weren't good enough at tackle, and we will look at some ways we can get better there," Brown said. "A lot of it wasn't (lack of) ability, but a lot of footwork and just not having their eyes where they're supposed to be. That's the first time they ever played in a game against some quality people, so they'll get better."
Brown said some of the protection issues were also on quarterback Jarret Doege, who was sacked five times for a loss of 32 yards. Two of those came on WVU's final drive of the game.
"Jarret didn't move in the right direction some, and he missed some throws, but Jarret Doege showed his toughness. The kid is tough," Brown said. "He stepped into a bunch of throws. He missed some balls, and we've got to get better there, but I think he showed his team that he's plenty tough and his preparation will always give him a chance and he will be better this week."
West Virginia (1-1) will have another big challenge this Saturday against a Baylor team coming off an impressive 47-14 home victory over Kansas.
The Bears rushed for 203 yards and got two kickoff returns for touchdowns from 5-foot-11, 208-pound senior running back Trestan Ebner.
Ebner finished the game with 272 all-purpose yards.
John Lovett ran 17 times for 78 yards and mobile quarterback Charlie Brewer passed for 142 yards and added 23 more on the ground.
"The kid wins," Brown said of Brewer. Brown coached his older brother Michael while at Texas Tech and also worked some with Charlie during camps when he was a youngster. "He comes from a winning family. His granddad was a winner, his dad was a winner, his brother was a winner so it's bred into him. That's as high a compliment as I can give Charlie."
Brown's early film study of the Bears reveals an aggressive, physical Baylor team no different than the one Matt Rhule left before taking the Carolina Panthers job last winter.
Rhule's replacement Dave Aranda, most recently LSU's defensive coordinator, has assembled a staff comprised of two former head coach as his coordinators – Larry Fedora on offense and Ron Roberts on defense.
"I have a lot of respect for that program in what coach Rhule did turning that around and now what coach Aranda has continued to do," Brown said. "It's a team that jumps out at you on film because they play with a toughness, they play with and edge and extremely hard. I thought they had a really good outing in their first game."
Saturday's Big 12 home opener will once again be without fans, which WVU announced last week.
West Virginia only permitted immediate family members and essential game workers into the stadium for the Mountaineers' season-opening game against Eastern Kentucky, which turned out to be a listed crowd of 976 in 60,000-seat Milan Puskar Stadium.
Brown is hopeful the county COVID-19 numbers can get to a place where officials are comfortable permitting a certain percentage of fans into the stadium as is the case throughout the rest of the conference.
Oklahoma State permitted 14,672 fans to attend last Saturday's West Virginia game.
"At Oklahoma State, it's bowled in pretty good and the sound stays in there," Brown said. "At times I thought it felt like a college football game. You could still yell out at your kids on the field, which is not a normal situation there when they have a full fanbase, but I thought the ones that were there were still beating on the boards and doing that kind of stuff and it got loud when it was appropriate."
Brown said playing in an empty football stadium is something he's addressed with his team.
"It's not ideal, and we hope to have fans here soon," he said. "The way we approach it is nobody's here watching practice every day and we've still got to compete at a high level, and that's the way we treat the game.
"I hate it for the fanbase," Brown added. "We've got a passionate fanbase here. Some of our fans' greatest memories are right here at Mountaineer Field, and I just feel for our true fans that can't come to the games right now. There is something missing, but it's better than the alternative, which is not playing at all. That's the way I talk to our team about it."
Brown will have another scheduled media session on Tuesday afternoon.
Players Mentioned
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