First Full-Team Practice ‘Not Good Enough’ for Coach Brown

For the first time since March 12, the entire West Virginia football team practiced together this afternoon. Unfortunately, the practice did not go as well as head coach Neal Brown was hoping.

“To be honest, it was sloppy; it wasn’t good football,” Brown said via the camp report. “But there were some good individual performances on offense and defense. But it wasn’t good enough.”

In today’s training camp report, Brown described the practice as sloppy, unimpressive, undisciplined and said far too many players were on the ground for the non-tackling work they were doing.

“If you watched us practice today, it was not impressive,” Brown Said. “Too many guys on the ground and it just looked like we hadn’t practiced very much in a physical environment and that’s the case. Today was one of the first, real physical days we’ve had, and we’ve got to play physical football to have a chance to compete in the Big 12, but it was sloppy today.”

Brown said some of it could be attributed to rust from not having had a normal practice since the spring, and also that teams across the country were probably running into similar problems.

“I think that’s not just us but probably every football team across the country is dealing with this because you didn’t have much of an offseason, so you have a year-long plan to create discipline within your program on the football field and it showed today we are not where we need to be from a discipline standpoint,” he said. “There were a lot of procedure penalties and just not knowing how to practice.”

On the positive side, Brown noted that true freshman cornerback Daryl Porter Jr. has continued to stand out.

“He’s got a chance. He may even be able to break into the lineup,” Brown said. “He’s definitely going to play. If you keep making plays in practice that’s how you are going to earn your way onto the field on Saturdays and so far so good for him.”

Brown said next week’s practices will be a combination of what the team does today and tomorrow morning in the stadium.