It won’t be fairly, however the Mountaineers are profitable video games

Having now accomplished a 3rd of the common season — in case you can consider that — there’s solely however one query that must be requested about this WVU soccer crew:
Are you not happy with profitable?

The Mountaineers walked off Milan Puskar Stadium on Saturday with a 20-13 victory in opposition to Texas Tech, a win that bought WVU off to a profitable begin in Large 12 play in 2023.

We are saying that once more: WVU is off to a profitable begin in Large 12 play in 2023.

Now, we are able to break that assertion down into a number of sub chapters and discussions on simply how spectacular or how good WVU’s 3-1 total report seems to be within the grand scheme of the scope of faculty soccer.
We may additionally start a Powerpoint presentation right here on whether or not or not the majority of the Large 12 is wherever near the extent its been in recent times.

“That’s a crew that was a darling decide of the Large 12 early within the 12 months,” WVU head coach Neal Brown stated. “They had been picked two or three in lots of the polls. This was a extremely good win. When you take a look at who performs properly within the league, you win dwelling video games. We had a three-game dwelling stretch and we swept it.”
Fact is, there was nothing fairly in regards to the Mountaineers’ offense in opposition to the Pink Raiders.
There was nothing price writing dwelling a few week in the past in a win in opposition to rival Pitt, but the larger image right here is these had been wins nonetheless.

“It wasn’t fairly,” Brown stated. “I used to be disillusioned with how we performed offensively. We’re a troublesome soccer crew. Individuals will say, ‘Properly, it wasn’t fairly and final week wasn’t fairly.’ Win is a win.”

And in the interim, all of that different exterior noise about how sturdy or weak the Large 12 is that this 12 months or how vanilla WVU’s offensive scheme appears to be by 4 video games simply shouldn’t matter?

Why? As a result of WVU is discovering a defensive resurgence — once more, we are able to argue about how competent Pitt, Duquesne and Texas Tech truly had been on offense — and is profitable, interval.

A 12 months in the past, this Texas Tech crew did no matter it wished to in rolling up 594 yards in a 48-10 butt kicking.
“We had been embarrassed by Texas Tech final 12 months,” is how Brown put it.

Kansas’ Jalon Daniels first turned a any person within the soccer world final 12 months courtesy of WVU. A loss to Pitt was a heartbreaker.

At this level final season, WVU followers had been giving up on the remainder of the season, rightfully so, too.
At this level final season, you’ll have been begging for ugly wins moderately than head-scratching defeats.
Properly, that’s what you’re getting proper now. Is it not higher in comparison with the choice?

In fact it’s. Is that this WVU crew going to conjure up reminiscences of Main Harris, Pat White, and even Bruce Irvin, who was inducted into the college’s Corridor of Fame previous to the sport? Completely not.
Does that even matter? Given the outcomes of the primary 4 years underneath Neal Brown, ought to it even
matter?

And right here’s one thing else: When you suppose the Large 12 is as common this season as I do, you can also make a powerful case for this WVU program to ugly its technique to eight wins within the common season.
The final time WVU gained eight video games was 2018, which in some way looks like quite a bit longer than 5 years in the past.

Would you not take that?
Something however a “sure” is simply unrealistic at this level.
Ugly, conservative, boring and possibly even a scarcity of choices — all of it may be stated about this WVU crew.
But what’s totally different is the one vital factor, the Mountaineers have been mature sufficient to nonetheless discover a technique to win.