WVU HC Neal Brown Sounds Off on Lack of Penn State Penalties

West Virginia HC Neal Brown raised some eyebrows with his postgame comments after a 38-15 season-opening loss at Penn State Saturday night in Happy Valley.

Despite being up by two scores, PSU coach James Franklin decided to try to get another touchdown rather than take a knee, and Penn State succeeded, scoring with six seconds left. Brown didn’t like that too much.

“I wouldn’t have done it,” Brown said in his postgame presser. “But it doesn’t bother me. Stuff like that comes back around.”

Brown’s comments have drawn the reaction one would expect from Penn State fans.

Calls 3 timeouts late game trying to get the ball back and expects us not to score on him🤣

Enjoy the hot seat coach https://t.co/L80HYs057W

— Henry Smychynsky (@ohenry66) September 3, 2023

This dudes a clown 🤡 https://t.co/ECirr75sto

— Sage Lear (@SLear25) September 3, 2023

Booooooo Hoooooo 🥲🥲🥲🥲 Coach Brown! https://t.co/19WLcMUReo

— Gino Giavonette (@Sportsking55) September 3, 2023

The result and Penn State’s late touchdown wasn’t the only thing Brown wasn’t over the moon with after Saturday’s game.

West Virginia ended the night with five penalties for 55 yards. Penn State had just one for five yards.

Whether this happened because of officiating errors or West Virginia simply committing more penalties than Penn State is up for debate, but Brown suggested postgame that he feels it was more of the former.

“Either they blocked the cleanest of anybody in the history of college football,” Brown said. “Or there were some missed calls.”

“They had one penalty in the game, I think it was a false start. Zero holding penalties,” Brown added.

WVU HC Neal Brown says either Penn State’s offensive line played the cleanest game ever or there were missed calls.

— Mike J. Asti (@MikeAsti11) September 3, 2023

To be fair to Brown, he did go out of his way to credit Penn State. He estimated in the week leading up to the game that Penn State would have nine NFL draft picks on it, and after the game praised players such as QB Drew Allar, CB Kalen King and OT Olu Fashanu.