Neal Brown Film Review: Iowa State

This afternoon, West Virginia head football coach Neal Brown took to the podium to recap what he saw in the teams loss to Iowa State. Below you will find those very thoughts for each side of the ball, including some individual performances that impressed him.

Initial thoughts

“For the second week in a row, we took a quality opponent into the fourth quarter and for the second week in a row, we didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to win the game. We got to coach better, our players got to finish the games better.”

“We’re experiencing some growing pains, I think that’s obvious. I will say this: I think our kids are playing with great effort and playing really physical.”

Special teams negatives

“I think special teams-wise we were average. We weren’t poor, but we weren’t good enough to win the game. Our kickoff return unit we lost a lot of one on one battles. I thought there were some opportunities there to maybe make some game changing plays and we did not do that. I thought the kickoff out of bounds really hurt us, I thought that was a key play.”

Special teams positives

“Some of the positives, I think this is the fifth week in a row where we haven’t allowed a single punt return yard. Thought we did a really good job on our coverage units. Thought we did a really job getting down there on our kickoff and our punt team. Our field goal/extra point protection is much improved and has made strides.”

Defense negatives

“We gave up too many ten yard plus plays. We have to do a better job getting off the field on third and fourth down.

Defense positives

“I thought for three quarters or more we had Brock Purdy off his game. Thought we did some nice things in our rushing defense, they averaged 3.3 yards per carry. We gave ourselves a chance to win defensively going into the fourth quarter

Offense 

“Not a whole lot of positives, we were better on third down but turnovers hurt us. Our running game has been a struggle all year and it was no different on Saturday. The biggest thing that hurt us is the negative plays, we had 12 negative plays out of 56 snaps. They had three sacks and nine TFL’s, so that’s not good enough.

Individual performances

Special teams– “Two guys that have played at a high level all year long and continued to do so against Iowa State is George Campbell and Dante Bonamico. I think both of them played 17 snaps, only one negative play out of those 34 between the two of those guys.”

Defense– “Josh Chandler played his best game of the year, we cut his reps down so he was able to play faster. I thought he showed some real positive signs especially in the box.”

“Nicktroy Fortune played 80 snaps. For a true freshman to go in that type of game and play well, he had a couple pass break ups and only got out of position a couple times. Really encouraging in how he played.”

“Reese Donahue played his best game of the year, he had a sack and was really active.”

“Josh Norwood three games in a row that he’s been our most physical player in the secondary. I think he had ten plus tackles.”

Offense- “Colton McKivitz was dominant in the game, it was fun to watch him play. I wish I could say that about more guys on offense. He is playing at an extremely high level and I don’t want that to get lost on us not playing as good as we need to on offense. He is playing dominant.”

“Mike Brown played his best game of the year and T.J. Simmons has put two games together and thought he had some big plays.

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