Dec 26, 2023 4 min read

By Bob Hertzel

For the Observer-Reporter

newsroom@observer-reporter.com

MORGANTOWN, W.Va – We have reached the conundrum moment in the football season for West Virginia.

Today is Bowl day, and it is a time that any bowl team must ask the chicken or the egg question of whether it is the end of the 2023 season or the beginning of the 2024 season.

Which comes first? Is it the chicken? Is it the egg? Is it the start of a new season or the end of the old season?

The site is Charlotte, N.C.; the game is the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. As the two 8-4 teams clash, each having reached this moment in time in diabolically different manners, each represents its version of what college football has become.

While the calendar doesn’t say that it’s New Year’s Eve, it is exactly that for both teams — a time to ring out the old and bring in the new, a time to look back and see what might have been and a time to look forward to see what might be.

North Carolina’s “might have been” was a 6-0 start, a star quarterback named Drake Maye who figures to be one of the top picks of this year’s NFL draft, but a season that fell apart late with Maye among a number of key players who have opted out of the bowl.

West Virginia’s “might have been” was a season that started by being picked 14th in the Big 12’s preseason poll. An early injury to the Mountaineers’ unproven quarterback Garrett Greene made it look like a lost year and a time when they would be changing coaches, but they rallied late.

As North Carolina was coming apart, WVU was pulling together. As UNC was losing, WVU was winning. That is how they are as they collide at 5:30 p.m.

The end or the beginning?

Neal Brown has an answer.

“We need to finish,” he said in his pre-bowl media session. ‘We’re still in a mindset where we have to prove guys wrong. It is the start of what’s to come because we get a lot of work with the young guys. It’s like an extra spring ball. But we are still in the mindset of finishing the season off.”

It is both an end to a season in which Brown kept his job and where pride swelled in the late-season turnaround.

Brown has worked that into his bowl preparation, creating a situation where players who elsewhere would have gone into the portal or opted out of the bowl will play. They include the likes of Greene, his highlight-reel running back Jaheim White, All-American cornerback Beanie Bishop and offensive tackle Doug Nester.

Its only potential game-changing absences are All-American center Zach Frazier, who is out with injury, to be replaced at the position by Brandon Yates, and running back CJ Donaldson, also out with injury.

The start of one year or the end of the next? What is it, Neal Brown?

“We talk about this, too,” Brown answered. “It’s the finale for ’23, a chance to get to nine wins and that’s really important. But it’s also kind of the start of ’24, too, and for the O-line that’s really the case because Yates is playing.”

Last year, VU didn’t go to a bowl and the season just sort of ended. There really was no chance at a rebirth, but Brown has noticed a huge difference this December from last.

“Winning makes it different,” he said.

Last year, there were doubts, unanswered questions and no way to answer them. The portal was flowing outward, and, as is the case in the modern football system, you couldn’t really put together your team with the next year in mind.

“As a coach, you don’t really feel you can say this is my team, because of portal dates, until the first day of fall camp. That’s when you have your team, so it’s really a different feel the whole time. Some of it is our leadership is better; we made some significant changes schematically on defense; we really changed who we were offensively, and the locker room dynamics are a lot better.

“This December is quite a bit different than a year ago. I think our outlook is much more positive, both in-house and from the outside.”