It is generally accepted that 19th century Irish novelist Margaret Wolfe Hungerford coined the common phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
It’s not an idiom that is often used when describing a football season, and whether or not it's applicable in this case is debatable. But Hungerford’s quote is worth considering when determining the perspective we use to look at West Virginia football following this past weekend.
The Mountaineers were able to secure a 31-21 win over UCF to celebrate Senior Day on Saturday, and that is enough to secure bowl eligibility on the season -- whether or not the fanbase views this as a success or not is hotly debated, but WVU senior safety Anthony Wilson Jr. wanted to remind everyone following the win over the Knights that it’s not as easy to accomplish a postseason eligibility as some believe it to be.
“At the end of the day, winning in college football is hard. It doesn’t matter what level you’re at, or where you’re at,” Wilson said after the game. “Winning is hard, and winning six or more games is a blessing. People are going to have their opinion regardless, that’s just how fans are. But winning more than six games, or at least six games, is a blessing, and just being able to continue into the postseason is not something every team in the country is able to say they can do.”
Despite what some fans might believe after a number of his press conference statements have been dissected and ridiculed, it’s safe to say WVU Head Coach Neal Brown isn’t exactly happy with the course of the past few months himself. After coaching his way off a hot seat and into a slight extension in 2023, his team has fallen short of their internal expectations from the program.
The outside pressure has been hot and heavy too, with fans calling for his job to varying degrees since September -- a Fire Neal Brown billboard campaign launched towards the end of October, he’s had to fire his now-former defensive coordinator, and he has seen the WVU fan outrage make its way to ESPN articles multiple times.
So a postseason bid is likely a bit of vindication for Brown and his program. But beyond the postseason eligibility, there are some other positives to look at as well. And just as there was some historical significance for the program in the November 16th loss to Baylor, the UCF win brought some as well.
“We still have a lot to play for, we got a lot to play for,” Brown said on Saturday. “We can get to seven wins, we got an opportunity to win six conference games in the Big 12, we got a chance to have the best back-to-back years with our Big 12 record, the opportunity to go 6-3 back-to-back, that would be the best two year run since we joined the conference. I think people have overlooked that, but that’s important to us.”
As Brown pointed out, the team can win against Texas Tech and earn a 7-5 overall record, which isn’t exactly ideal. But in the perspective of conference play, it would in fact be just the fourth time since the program joined the Big 12 in 2012 that the team has secured 6-or-more wins in league play, and would be the first time they’ve done it in back-to-back years.
It’s also worth noting that a 7-win regular season is nothing to sneeze at for WVU historically speaking – former head coach Dana Holgorsen eclipse that number only three times during an eight-year tenure in Morgantown, and just twice while in the Big 12.
In addition, the team is still not mathematically eliminated from the Big 12 title race. While the chance is miniscule – less than 1%, actually – the game if nearly every league game falls a certain way next week (including a WVU win), the Mountaineers can play for their first-ever Big 12 title. And with the chaos of the league this season, nothing is out of the question. All of that combined is certainly positive momentum to build on, even if it doesn’t meet initial expectations.
“I’m just happy for our guys, really. I'm happy for our seniors, happy to get to six. We’ve been up-and-down, like I don’t hide from that,” Brown said. “But if we can get to 6 wins, that’s something we’ll feel good about as a program. Like I said, it's never been done, if we can do that in back-to-back years, we’ll feel good about that.”
So for the next few weeks, there will be a lot of hooplah amongst WVU media and Mountaineer Nation as to what the future of the program should look like and what decisions will be made. Regardless of what happens, there will likely be some ire amongst parts of the fanbase and potentially even the donors.
But there is a perspective where one can look at this season, particularly with a win against Texas Tech next week, and understand a bit better Brown’s comments last week that it could be worse – we could be 0-10. And while that’s a hyperbolic statement, it’s not particularly incorrect. Take Nebraska, for example. The Cornhuskers have won national championships in their past, unlike West Virginia, and are headed bowling this season for the first time since 2016. The program could see worse days.
“It doesn’t matter in any situation, they’re going to say something if we do something right or do something wrong,” WVU’s CJ Donaldson Jr. said on Saturday. “So we try to keep everything in house and we understand – like last night we watched Gladiator, and it was important to realize that everybody around the arena is watching the fight but we’re the ones inside the fight. So the only thing that matters is what we got going on – if we’re happy then we’re happy, and that’s the only thing that matters to us.”