WVU offense finally getting in tune
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Imagine, if you will, John Lennon sitting down to write his song “Imagine”, without the words coming to him.
He knew what he wanted it to sound like at the end but somehow things just weren’t working out.
The harder he worked at it, the less he liked it.
Then, to complicate matters, his driving force, his inspiration, Yoko Ono fell down the stairs and sprained an ankle.
Now he couldn’t think straight at all.
If you can capture this feeling, you know how Neal Brown was feeling as WVU got into it’s season. He knew the offense he wanted, it just wasn’t meshing and, what’s more, the heart of the offense — Neal Brown’s Yoko Ono, if you will — Garrett Greene sprained an ankle.
He kept after it though, even as one offensive lineman after another went down to injury and even as running backs underperformed.
Then, as Greene returned and got his timing down, as he threw well enough to balance off of a growing running game, as offensive linemen covered up for each other until the yards that they had been gaining now were transforming into points, Brown’s inspiration was coming to light.
“Who we’ve been the last couple of weeks is who we thought we could be on offense,” he admits now.
The team has run off 39, 34 and 41 points the last four weeks, the record has settled in at 5-3 with four games left, two losses only in Big 12 play leave the Mountaineers still in contention for a spot in the title game.
If only Brown was not haunted by one play … that Hail Mary pass Houston completed against them three weeks back. Then things would be really, really interesting.
But as it is, as Saturday dawned, BYU comes to Mountaineer Field for a game with far more implications than anyone dared think it would when the season began, a game important enough that FOX, which will carry at with its 7 p.m. start at Mountaineer Field on the night they retire Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee and WVU star Chuck Howley’s No. 66 jersey, , is sending it national as a replacement for the World Series.
Part of the reasoning behind putting WVU in that spot — other than it already was slated to go on the cable Fox sports network — is that WVU and BYU are always strong TV draws, each with a faithful following of fans who live for their sports programs.
The matchup itself is intriguing, for BYU is a new member of the Big 12, a university from another universe out west, a school trying to prove itself to be on the Power 5 level, making a rare trip East and it should be something .
“BYU, very proud program,” Brown said. “Our fans really need to show up and be loud. We need their support here. BYU’s a national brand, they travel well wherever they go. I think this is really their only east coast game of the year so I’m sure there will be a lot of their fans here.”
And BYU is looking forward to coming.
“Looking forward to the cool traditions they have,” BYU coach Kilani Sitake said this week. “They have a passionate fanbase that loves their team and talking to a lot of different people, it’s a hard place to play. Looking forward to that. I like fans who care about their teams and have a lot of passion for it.”
They love their team and their song, “Country Roads.”
“Looking forward to hearing them all sing,” he went on. “It’s going to be nice to hear them sing ‘Country Roads, Take Me Home.’ That’s a cool song. I think there’s a lot of really cool things about college football and it’s cool that we get to be in that environment and compete against West Virginia.”
The welcome mat will be out, especially since BYU brings with it one of the most porous run defenses in college football, just as WVU’s continues to blossom with Greene running his keepers on RPOs, with both JC Donaldson and Jaheim White coming off their top games of the season, with Justin Johnson Jr. a strong change of pace option and with Rodney Gallagher getting the hang of running reverses in the college game.
WVU is No. 16 nationally rushing the ball at 203.2 yards per game while BYU ranks 82nd stopping the run.
In fact, the run game is holding the Cougars back on both sides of the ball, ranking 127th out of 131 Division 1 teams with just 81 rushing yards per game.
A victory would make the Mountaineers bowl eligible and go a long way toward easing the pressure on Brown, who came into the season with new athletic director Wren Baker evaluating his entire program, making Brown’s future very much uncertain.
So, if things go as they seem to be going with the words and music of the passing and run games go together for WVU, who knows where it will take them.
Imagine.