Neal Brown: West Virginia needed this win in the Backyard Brawl
Neal Brown got one of the biggest wins of his five-year tenure at West Virginia this weekend when the Mountaineers picked one up over Pittsburgh in The Backyard Brawl.
That victory holds a lot of significance for West Virginia’s season and the perception of Brown in Morgantown. However, as Brown said postgame on Saturday, he thinks it’s just as big considering the kind of team that it proved that he has.
“A huge win, a huge win. I thought it was a team win,” said Brown. “They call it The Brawl for a reason. That wasn’t a thing of beauty there, that wasn’t, like, a classic that they’re going to talk about the beauty of that game for a long time. But, regardless of what it was, it was a win for West Virginia.”
“We’re a tough football team. We’re a mentally tough football team, we’re a physically tough football team. I thought that that showed” continued Brown. “It was ugly and we can play ugly ball.”
Brown also saw it as the payback for what took place in the rivalry’s return last season. After a late pick-six by JT Daniels cost them in last fall’s game, he’s glad that they got to return the favor in Milan Puskar Stadium just over a year later.
“It’s been something that has stuck with us for 54 weeks,” said Brown. “We had a chance. We had a lead in the fourth quarter 54 weeks ago and we just did not finish.”
This game was anything but polished. It featured just 23 total points and only two touchdowns while the two teams combined for four turnovers.
Still, West Virginia did enough to take it by double digits. That’s especially true defensively as they forced three interceptions and shut out Pittsburgh in the second half.
In the end, Brown had a lot of pride in what his team did to cast out the negativity and uplift their program, university, and state. They did something that West Virginia hadn’t in quite some time which Brown knows means everything for them and their fanbase in terms of a reward.
“I’m proud of our guy, proud of our staff. I said this to our team and I made a point of this – it had been since November 25th, 2011 since the state of West Virginia and our fanbase had experienced a win and been able to celebrate a win over Pittsburgh on the gridiron,” Brown said. “Our state needed this, our university needed this, our football program needed this. This is a huge win on a bunch of different levels and that’s not lost on us.”
“That’s a great feeling when you put a lot into it and you’re able to get the payoff,” said Brown.