Mountaineers prepare for Penn State
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MORGANTOWN -- As West Virginia's football team gathered on Monday morning for the final week of preparations for the opening game of the 2024 season against Penn State, they did so hoping that maybe the football gods had sent them a message of hope over the weekend.
In the college football season opener, Georgia Tech stunned the nation's No. 10 team, Florida State, 24-21, on a walk-off field goal in a game played in Dublin.
That is, by the way, Dublin, Ireland, not Dublin, Ohio, although it is difficult to swallow the thought that those two teams had to travel to Europe for what is really a great American tradition, that being the opening day of college football.
Certainly, while unranked Georgia Tech could have flown home without the use of an airplane, the Florida State team had to feel as if the trip home couldn't have been any worse had they been forced to swim the Atlantic Ocean.
And this, you wonder, affects WVU how?
Well, like Georgia Tech, the Mountaineers are unranked. Like Georgia Tech, they are facing a Top 10 team in No. 9 Penn State. Like Georgia Tech, they are expected across America to be wrecks at the end of the day, although Georgia Tech proved themselves to be Ramblin' Wrecks, indeed.
But, there was a message for WVU to take out of that game and that is that they are on the right track to do similar damage to the preseason rankings, especially since they will be riding a loud wave of noise on their home field.
When one listened to the Georgia Tech coach, Brent Key, it became quite clear that what he is establishing in his second year in Atlanta is quite similar to what Neal Brown has put together at WVU, both philosophically and in style of play.
His words well could have been uttered by Brown in a similar situation.
"More than anything, to see or to know that so many people now see Georgia Tech and the brand of football that we play, and it's not a gimmicky brand of football," Key said in his on-field interview with ESPN. "It's real. It's hard-nosed, We're going to build at the line of scrimmage. That's where games are won."
This is exactly what Brown has established at WVU. His offense is built from the line back, a run-first, physical approach to the game with hard-running backs in Jahiem White and CJ Donaldson, and with a dual-threat quarterback in Garrett Greene.
This did not happen by accident at West Virginia as Brown transformed himself from an Air Raid coach to one who leans heavily now on the new style of football that is taking over from the NFL on down.
Keys said it was no accident for him, either.
"It's very intentional how we were building this program," Key said. "We're building it with a strong foundation to last a long time."
This is a song Brown has been singing as he program took hold from the middle of last season on, winning the last three games and finishing so well that Brown on Monday said he'd wished that when the season had ended they could have started right there with this Penn State opener the week after beating North Carolina in the Duke's Mayo Bowl.
The similarities between WVU's offense and Georgia Tech's seemed to jump through the TV screen at you on Saturday.
A big part of it for WVU is Greene's quarterback play, being able to pass the balls but adding the ability to break loose on long gains on the ground. Haynes King offers much the same style, although Greene is faster and has a stronger arm.
But you could almost hear Brown talking about Greene when Key spoke of King, who ran 15 times and passed 16 times..
"Hayes is hands down the best quarterback in this league, and I think he has a chance to be the best quarterback in the country this year," Key said. "The cool thing about him is it doesn't have to be throwing the ball. It doesn't have to be his running. He can do both, and he's such an unselfish kid — and an unselfish player that he puts the team first and whatever it takes to win."
Brown has been saying precisely the same thing all off-season about Greene.
Certainly, if Georgia Tech can fly all the way to Ireland to upset Florida State with the same vision and play style as WVU, isn't there a message there to the Mountaineer team about what might lie ahead at high noon on Saturday at Milan Puskar Stadium?
"I don't know how to answer that except to say we feel like now if we play our game we have a chance to win against anybody," Brown said during his Monday press conference. "We have a ton of respect for Penn State but we are going to play our style of football."
Brown says he believes Greene has grown into being able to handle the moment against Penn State after losing their last year.
"I really feel like Garrett was prepared to take a step last year during the offseason going into the game but you don't know until he's the starter, he plays and goes the whole season," Brown said. "We definitely have a better feel for how he's going to play and a lot of belief in him. I've said this several times, if he's not the most underrated player in college football, he's one of them."