Neal Brown is "fired up" about his roster headed into upcoming season

Headed into the 2024 college football season, there isn’t too much attention being focused on West Virginia.

The team isn’t dealing with a last-place projection in the conference like in 2023, of course, but there isn’t a ton of hype outside Morgantown surrounding the program.

For head coach Neal Brown, though, he couldn’t be happier about what he believes his team brings to the table this season. Following Wednesday’s opening practice to preseason camp, Brown answered questions on what he sees out of this group a month ahead of their first game.

"We look like a contending power four football team (physically)," he said. "Our line of scrimmage looks significantly different than our first two or three years here. That's not a knock on anybody who was here, but we just didn't have the depth, and we were having to play young players before they had really developed from a strength standpoint and a weight standpoint.”

With that physical prowess combined with numerous pieces returning from a 2023 campaign that ended with a 9-4 record and a Duke’s Mayo Bowl win, Brown believes that there is plenty to get excited about within the program.

"I'm really fired up about this group," he said.

However, Brown understands how hard it is to tell at this early stage what he truly has waiting for the opposition this fall. He did caution that it’s best to wait a bit longer into preseason camp before he determines exactly where the team is at. But he does believe it could be one of his deepest and most talented teams yet.

"Talk to me after our second scrimmage, and I can probably give you a fair answer, but on paper it is," he said. "Defensively, we have more depth than we've ever had and offensively, we've got a good mix of playmakers, probably the most diverse group we've had.”