WVU coach Neal Brown says Mountaineers ‘looking forward to a date’ for football’s return
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Neal Brown remains “cautiously optimistic” that there will be a college football season this fall. What the West Virginia coach would like is a target date to set his sights upon.
Not just for himself but especially for Mountaineers players.
“It’s important that we play during this fiscal year,” Brown said Wednesday morning on a 35-minute conference call with reporters, noting the sadness in the WVU athletic department after furloughs last week to offset a $5 million budget shortfall. “It’s really not going to be up to me to figure the pros and cons. I’ve got an understanding that it’s really important. I think it’s important for a lot of reasons, not just financially. I think our country needs something to look forward to.”
West Virginia is scheduled to open the season by hosting Florida State on Sept. 5 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, but Brown is anticipating there could be a staggered start to the season, depending on when states reopen amid the coronavirus crisis.
Brown said his biggest concern is the players’ mental well-being, even more so than their physical state despite Wednesday marking two months to the day since West Virginia was last permitted to have team activities at on-campus facilities.
Brown said the Mountaineers are making the most of their weekday virtual meetings, but he is recognizing signs of fatigue, especially with no target return date in sight.
“The last two weeks have been tougher on our guys than probably the previous six,” Brown said. “We’re at a point where they need something to look forward to. So much of their days, really their year-long calendar, is structured. As we finished up last semester, we’re looking forward to a date. Hopefully, that’s coming in the near future.”
Brown is expecting players to require six weeks to get ready for the season. That not only includes testing for the covid-19 virus but also stress tests to prevent soft-tissue injuries.
But Brown expects his players to be ready to play, even if not everyone returns at the same level of physical preparation. Brown believes they will have a renewed appreciation for the opportunity, now that football has been taken away.
“This is what they signed up for,” Brown said. “They signed up to play college football. They just need something to look forward to.”
Brown praised the leadership of Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby and West Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons, a member of the Division I Football Oversight Committee and credited the decision makers for “being prudent.”
“I’m not in that decision-making role but if I was in that decision-making role, I’d be waiting as long as possible to make decisions,” Brown said. “I think that’s the right thing to do. That’s been my feeling throughout this whole pandemic: The longer you wait to make a decision, the more information you’re going to have. Right now, in the college football world is that May 31 date. That’s kind of the end-all to the guidelines that are in place and I think that the powers that be are going to wait as close to that deadline as they can to give us some direction to move forward.”