West Virginia fans are upset after a heartbreaking 38-34 loss to Pitt in the Backyard Brawl, in which the Mountaineers allow the Panthers to come back from a ten-point deficit with under five minutes to play in the game.
Many are pointing out the poor defensive performance, particularly in the secondary. According to Head Coach Neal Brown, the Mountaineers are struggling to play the pass defense needed to be a threat to other teams.
“Let’s just say what it is, man, we have not covered the pass very good,” Brown said in the post-game press conference.
But it’s not just Mountaineer fans and Brown that see some serious flaws in the team’s defensive performance. National college football pundits are beginning to open their eyes to it as well.
On Saturday night’s Instant Reaction episode of the Cover 3 Podcast – which is a CBS Sports production and one of the most-listened to college football podcasts in the country – shared their thoughts on the Backyard Brawl, and their opinion of the WVU defense was pretty unfavorable.
“Is the West Virginia defense really, really secretly shitty,” asked co-host Bud Elliott.
“I don’t think it’s a secret,” quickly shot Tom Fornelli, another member of the crew.
While another analyst on the show, Chip Patterson, pointed out that no one had WVU pegged as a standout defensive unit headed into the season, the perception has certainly shifted to the worse through three games.
“No one had ascribed West Virginia as being like, ‘oh, that’s a really tough defense there.’ I think it’s gone from being neutral to a negative,” Patterson said.
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Elliott also indicated that he might not believe the Mountaineers have the defensive personnel they might need to play competitively.
“They just don’t have players who, like, standout. It looks just kinda, meh. I mean, who is special on West Virginia?”