Bragg: WVU Football Made Progress in 2020 as Brown’s ‘Climb’ Carries On

Following West Virginia’s comeback win in last week’s Liberty Bowl, I wanted to take some time to digest not just that win but the 2020 season as a whole before writing a column marking the end of the season.

Immediately after the game I felt good about WVU’s 2020 and the direction the program is pointed two seasons into Neal Brown’s tenure as head coach, and time to think about it over the weekend did nothing to change that — Brown’s “climb” is on track and heading the right direction.

“Going into this game, we had played football and were great representatives of how the game should be played for eight games,” Brown said after the Liberty Bowl win. “We didn’t win them all but we had a chance to win every single one of them. Our ninth game [against Iowa State] was ugly. It wasn’t who we were. For us to bounce back and have a come-from-behind victory here in the fourth quarter, win our second bowl game since joining the Big 12, I thought it was huge.”

He’s right. We have seen WVU seasons nose dive in recent years with a back-breaking late-season loss, but the 2020 team was different. There are many who say bowl games outside the College Football Playoff are meaningless exhibitions but that was not the case for this West Virginia team in the Liberty Bowl. The Mountaineers needed to erase the bad taste of that Iowa State debacle, and it certainly wasn’t pretty in Memphis against Army but the comeback-win is certainly a better step into the offseason than the alternative.

Just being in a bowl game this year — and being one of the teams that actually deserved to be in one — was a big step in the right direction for the Mountaineer program under Brown’s watch. His first team was still poisoned by the departure of the previous coaching staff but began to show some life down the stretch. The goal for 2020, even in the middle of a pandemic, was always going to be to build on the way 2019 ended and West Virginia certainly did that. A few examples: bowl game aside, quarterback Jarret Doege proved to be a capable game manager as running back Leddie Brown emerged as one of the best in the Big 12. WVU’s defense appeared to be poised for a stellar season prior to defensive coordinator’s Vic Koenning’s departure, and despite that stayed mostly on track to become one of the best at what they do in the entire country under the guidance of co-coordinators Jahmile Addae and Jordan Lesley.

Those are just some of the high points — , not including Brown’s continued dominance against and unbeaten record against the Big 12’s purple teams — of West Virginia’s “climb” in 2020, but the thing to remember about a climb is that it keeps going up.

Brown has WVU set up to potentially be pretty good in 2021, but it is going to take some work to get there. WVU is on good footing in the world of recruiting and the idea of homegrown monsters Zach Frazier and newcomers Wyatt Milum and Doug Nester manning the offensive line — one area where WVU had some bright spots but could really stand to improve — is reason for optimism. Brining back one of the league’s top running backs to run behind those guys is another.

So what does WVU need to do in 2021 to continue on its upward trajectory? My gut reaction during the first week of the calendar year is to say the Mountaineers need to be a realistic contender for the Big 12 championship game. They don’t need to be playing in Dallas 11 months from now for 2021 to be a successful campaign but being in the fight for one of those two spots down the stretch, I think, will be progress. A big part of that will be avoiding West Virginia’s annual “what the hell just happened?” loss — this season’s coming at lowly Texas Tech. Keep those losses off the record and win the games you are supposed to you’re going to be in good spot at the end of the season.

From almost the moment he stepped foot on campus in Morgantown, Brown has asked the players, staff, fans and school administration to “trust the climb” and with two seasons now under his belt at WVU this observer sees no reason at this time for anyone not to trust in where Brown is taking the Mountaineers.