have fun? First thoughts on West Virginia’s embarrassing loss to Kansas State

Once again, West Virginia fans left Milan Puskar Stadium angry and rightly so as the Neal Brown-led Mountaineers were defeated by Kansas State 45-18. The loss moves WVU to 3-4 this season and 2-2 in the Big 12 Conference.

As always, I have a few thoughts on what just transpired, so here we go.

We heard all offseason about all the progress Greene has made since last winter’s Mayo Bowl win, but in almost everyone’s eyes, he’s seen major regression.

No one will ever question the kid’s toughness and ability to play the football, but as a passer that’s simply not the case. He is what he is. A guy with a completion rate of around 50 percent who needs to establish the run game to get something in the air.

This is a big red flag for this coaching staff, especially since he has been a starter since the end of the 2022 season. Why have both Jarret Doege and Garrett Greene, Neal Brown’s only multi-year starting quarterbacks, regressed during their tenures?

Oh yeah, remember when Brown was upset that Greene wasn’t one of the top 100 players in the country?

West Virginia was at its strongest and threatened to score and tie the game at the end of the first half, opting to do so on 4th-and-1. Nobody blames Neal for trying. That’s not the problem.

The problem is keeping Garrett Greene on the sideline so late in the game that you don’t have enough time to line up, see the direction of the defense and make adjustments at the line. Not to mention, WVU could have tried to get Kansas State offside, but they didn’t have enough time because Brown took way too long to get the play call, and mind you, that came from a timeout. This attempt never had a chance.

During his tenure as Mountaineer head coach, Brown is now 3-17 against ranked opponents. I mean, do I really need to go much deeper into this? It’s astonishingly bad. How come you have so much returning talent from a nine-win team and can’t build on that? WVU has been extremely patient with him, and their investment has yet to pay off. How much longer does he need?

Changing coaches is no guarantee that things will turn around, but continuing with what you have is the purest form of insanity. WVU doesn’t want to deal with the buyout, but it will be more costly if Brown sticks around and doesn’t win games.

The Mountaineers are 0-4 on the “big stage,” for what that’s worth.

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