PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It wasn’t even close. West Virginia picked far and away as the last place team in the now 14 school Big 12. Mountaineers head coach Neal Brown promises they won’t finish last.
“Upset about the media poll, definitely don’t agree with that,” Brown said Wednesday. “The positive is the media hasn’t, as far as predicting the Big 12, has not been very successful in recent years.”
Brown said he was at the beach last week relaxing when he got a text from Mike Montoro. He said he decided to view the text about the earlier prediction and said he immediately snapped into football mode.
“This is why I disagree, it starts with belief in our staff and belief our players. Then how we finished would be the next thing. We beat Oklahoma, beat Oklahoma State on the road and offensively this will be our best group.”
Brown notes they have 132 starts returning on the offensive line this year, which he said is probably tops in the country. He said within the group they have four former freshmen All-Americans and three all-conference players. He said they have a buddying superstar in CJ Donaldson at running back and defensively he believes the will be one of the most improved units in the Big 12 if not the country.
Brown says you can’t ignore it in today’s world. He said they confronted it on Tuesday, did it in detail and with strong language.
“Looking forward to proving everyone wrong,” Brown said. “The chip was already there on the shoulder, it just increases the size.”
“We won’t finish there.”
The votes cast by the Big 12 Football Media at the conference media days. Six different teams got first place votes with Texas the predicted champ getting 41. In second, Kansas State with 14 first place votes. Oklahoma third (four first place), Texas Tech fourth (four first place), TCU fifth (three first place) followed by Baylor, Oklahoma State (one first place), the first newcomer Central Florida, followed by Kansas, Iowa State, BYU, Houston, Cincinnati and the Mountaineers with 73 points between them and the Bearcats.
Pitt will play both teams of those teams in September.