WVU football: Brown happy with the way summer is going

MORGANTOWN -- There’s a bit more of a sense of normalcy around Milan Puskar Stadium this summer. Now past the COVID-19 pandemic and adjusted to major rule changes across college sports, coach Neal Brown and the Mountaineers have been able to focus on football and have high hopes for the fall. “We haven’t had a whole lot of disruption in the last year,” Brown said Wednesday in an interview with HD Media. “What I mean by that is drastic rule changes, COVID -- we haven’t had anything drastic. We’re in a pretty good rhythm right now. "We’ve got a good feel, we’ve had a ton of people in camps, a ton of teams here for seven-on-sevens, we’ve had approximately 40 official visitors and I think we’ve got our strength and conditioning with Mike Joseph -- they’ve had a really good first three and a half weeks here. I think under the new rules with OTAs we’re in a good position where our guys are learning. “I’m excited about the year. I’m excited about getting started. I’ve enjoyed the summer. I’m looking forward to really watching this team develop through fall camp and putting us in a position where we really can surprise some people." The Mountaineers are coming off a disappointing 5-7 season, but believed as they went through the spring that they were much improved. The program decided not to pursue a quarterback in the transfer portal and instead are letting junior Garrett Greene and redshirt freshman Nicco Marchiol battle it out for the starting job. WVU also has a strong group returning on the offensive line and in the running backs room, despite the loss of last year’s leading rusher, Tony Mathis Jr., to the portal following the April 22 Gold-Blue Spring Game. The staff admits the team wasn’t good enough defensively last season -- the Mountaineers finished ninth of the 10 Big 12 teams in scoring defense with 32.9 points allowed per game -- but feel the group has improved with experience and additions made from the transfer portal. Since the spring, Brown and WVU have added a handful of other transfers to address immediate needs, including at receiver, along the defensive line and in the secondary, and to fill out the roster. That group includes Marshall transfer receiver EJ Horton, Angelo State transfer receiver Noah Massey, Minnesota transfer defensive back Beanie Bishop, Abilene Christian transfer defensive lineman Tyrin Bradley and Kentucky transfer defensive lineman Tomiwa Durojaiye. “We better be complete,” Brown said. “I say that kind of in a laughing but serious manner because we have 83 scholarships -- we’ve got 82 on campus right now and we’ll have 83 starting on Monday. For the most part, there’s going to be some walk-ons that earn scholarships or we’re still looking for one more defensive player potentially. We’ve got everybody here and we’ve had everybody here now for about three weeks. “What we tried to do is, coming out of the fall from a transfer standpoint, where do we need immediate help and we were able to fill those needs? But we didn’t want to reach in January, and then as we exited spring ball say, ‘OK, where do we need to add some players?’ And I think we were able to do that. “Now it’s about, this summer, getting those new pieces -- because we’ve got 30-something new pieces counting high school kids -- getting them where they learn what to do, getting them in shape and getting them to mesh with the guys that were here. That’s an ongoing process.” There’s also a number of incoming freshmen getting acclimated to the new environment and joining a group of eight that enrolled early in January and went through the spring with the program. With many critics across the country counting the Mountaineers out before the season gets started with a 7:30 p.m. game Sept. 2 against Penn State at Beaver Stadium in University Park, Pennsylvania, Brown is hopeful his unit can surprise people. “Here’s the deal: As you go through this, I believe in the systems we have in place, I believe in the infrastructure,” Brown said. “We’ve got the program at a point where, whether it’s strength and conditioning, nutrition, sports psychology, athletic training, academics, and then our systems that we have, now we’ve got to turn that into wins, right? “Offensively, I think we’ve got some really good pieces. It’s going to come down to how we do at quarterback -- and we know that -- but we like the two guys we have. The O-line’s a strength, so we feel really comfortable that we’re going to be able to run the football. I like the variety in our receiver room. “Defensively, if you look at it, we’ve got to be better there. We just simply weren’t good enough. Now, the previous three years we played quality defense, but last year just wasn’t good enough. "We went and added veterans in the secondary who I think come in and make an immediate impact. There’s going to be guys that, from January to August, make a big jump. People don’t talk about those guys, but we played some young guys last year and I think they’ll make a significant improvement over the offseason through the summer and I think we’ll be an improved defense when we play against Penn State.”