WVU’s Josh Eilert on Early Struggles: ‘That Needs to Be Rock Bottom’

WVU interim HC Josh Eilert commented on the Mountaineers’ early struggles this season. West Virginia is 3-4 with a first NET ranking of 209 in the country.

“3-4 doesn’t sit right with me whatsoever, doesn’t sit right with [the players], doesn’t sit right with our staff,” Eilert said on Tuesday prior to the Backyard Brawl. “Our NET ranking doesn’t sit well but it is what it is right now.”

Eilert made his team aware of the NET ranking, which is last in the Big 12. West Virginia has early season losses to Monmouth, SMU, Virginia and St. John’s as they are short-handed without transfers Kerr Kriisa (suspension), RaeQuan Battle (waiver) and Akok Akok (health). Eilert is trying to make sure this is the worst it can possibly be this season.

“Like I told them, take a hard look at that board up there. It has our NET rating, everybody else, who we’ve lost to, who we’ve beat and who we got coming up,” Eilert said. “Look at that number. I said that needs to be rock bottom for us. It really needs to be rock bottom.”

West Virginia is trying to make the 209 number motivation to turn the page around and finish out the non-conference schedule strong. WVU will play Pitt, Drexel, UMass, Radford, Toledo and Ohio State before Big 12 play.

“It’s natural for a lot of people when they’re struggling to start pointing fingers and try to figure out different solutions but stay the course. We’ve got help coming. We’re going to do everything to put ourselves in a position to win each and every game,” Eilert said. “When we get to the point that we can look back at this moment and say, yeah that was rock bottom.”

Eilert and West Virginia will welcome Pitt to the WVU Coliseum for the 190th edition of the Backyard Brawl on Wednesday. The Mountaineers and Panthers will tipoff at 9 p.m. on ESPN2.