West Virginia is receiving little attention as the 2024 college football season approaches.
Of course, the team isn’t projected to finish last in the conference like it was in 2023, but there isn’t a lot of buzz about the program beyond Morgantown.
Head coach Neal Brown, on the other hand, could not be more pleased with what he believes his club brings to the table this season. After the first practice of preseason camp on Wednesday, Brown discussed his impressions of the team one month before their first game.
“We look like a contending power four football team (physically),” he informed me. “Our line of scrimmage looks very different from the first two or three years here. That’s not a comment on anyone who was here, but we just lacked depth, and we were forced to play young players before they had fully developed in terms of muscle and weight.
With such physical prowess mixed with multiple players returning from a 2023 season that included a 9-4 record and a Duke’s Mayo Bowl victory, Brown believes there is lot to be enthused about within the program.
“I’m really fired up about this group,” he told me.
However, Brown understands how difficult it is to discern at this early point what he genuinely has in store for the opposition this autumn. He did warn that it’s best to wait a little longer in preseason camp before determining where the team stands. However, he believes it has the potential to be one of his most skilled and diverse teams to date.
“Talk to me after our second scrimmage, and I can probably give you a fair answer, but on paper it is,” stated the coach. “Defensively, we have more depth than we’ve ever had and offensively, we’ve got a good mix of playmakers, probably the most diverse group we’ve had.”
