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MORGANTOWN -- Neal Brown covered a lot of ground during his weekly teleconference with Big 12 media Monday morning.
Brown was asked why his defense has performed better in the second half in all three games this year against James Madison, Missouri and NC State.
He sort of flipped that around a little bit.
"We need to play better in the first half," he began.
"The first game, you are not really sure what to expect because we were going against a new coaching staff," he continued. "We got into the locker room and were able to make some adjustments because we knew what we were seeing. The second game, the whole first half was bad football so we were able to get in there and really re-focus the guys. I think that's what you saw.
"And in the last game, North Carolina State really had not shown much at all. They had a new coordinator on offense. They really hadn't been stressed at all so this was really like their first game again. I'm happy we are playing better in the second half, but I'd like to get to the point where we can play good in the first half as well."
Brown was also asked about taking a knee in the extra point try near the end of the game when the Mountaineers went ahead 44-27.
"We looked at the data from the analytics company we use and they give you different scenarios during the game and that put us up 17, so at that point the extra point does you no good," he explained. "There is no difference between 17 and 18 points, but a worse-case scenario happens and an extra point is blocked, they run it back, now it's a two-possession game and you bring the ability for them to score and try an onside kick.
"It may be unorthodox, but it makes a lot of sense."
Brown thought the team's great preparation last week really showed up last Saturday.
"We prepared a lot better during the week so I knew we'd have a chance. We're such a young football team and we did not play well at all against Missouri and we really challenged our guys," Brown said. "We had more physical practices a week ago, and I thought they came out and responded. We played with more of an edge. We blocked better. We tackled better."
Brown mentioned the great crowd playing a role as well. He was very appreciative of the 57,000-plus who showed up last Saturday one week after the Mountaineers' 38-7 loss at Missouri.
"I thought our energy was great, and I thought we fed off our crowd. We had an outstanding crowd here," Brown mentioned.
-- wvusports.com