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MORGANTOWN -- A year ago to the day as this is written -- July 14, 2022 -- this was one of the headlines written over the report of West Virginia football coach Neal Brown's appearance at Big 12 Media Day:
WVU Coach Neal Brown: Defense is our strength for 2022
The story noted that all the focus about WVU was on its new quarterback, JT Daniels, and that he may be the force to carry them to a winning season, but Brown offered up a different observation.
"We think this defensive unit has the opportunity to be the best that we've fielded so far," Brown said.
Wrong!
WVU, throttled by a pass defense so bad that the only time the corners and safeties got near receivers was to shake hands at the end of the game, finished 111th out of 131 teams in the nation, giving up 262.67 yards per game.
The result of that was a defense that gave up 32.92 points a game, enough to make JT Daniels' job impossible and send WVU fans out to seek Jack Daniels as it finished 5-7 and without a bowl bid.
Despite that, as Brown appeared at Big 12 Media Day this year, he did so with a new enthusiasm for the defense that has been rebuilt at WVU.
"Defensively, we are going to be one of the most improved units in the Big 12, if not in the country," Brown said.
Certainly, there is a lot of room for improvement.
But Brown really believes despite losing the talents of Dante Stills to the NFL and the transfer of cornerback Charles Woods, who did not play often last year due to injury when he was the key member of the secondary, that this is a defense with promise.
"We have all-league type players at each level," he said, meaning the defensive line, linebacker and secondary.
The voters who picked the preseason All-Big 12 team did not agree, picking no WVU players on defense and, as an aside, only center Zach Frazier on offense.
As he did with the sportswriters' pre-season poll, Brown disagreed.
In fact, he brought his three top defenders to Media Day -- defensive end Sean Martin, returning leading tackle at Mike linebacker from last year, Lee Kpogba and safety Aubrey Burks, who is the highest-rated returning safety in the conference according to PFF.
Brown understands that the days of 70-63 games, like WVU's debut game in the Big 12 against Baylor in 2012, are gone. That the conference has learned that its games are played in stadiums across the country, not shootouts at the OK Corral.
The league has changed and defense counts every bit as much as offense, maybe more so considering that Baylor took the league title in 2021 on its defensive strength and Kansas State did the same last year.
That is the result of evolution and Brown knows it.
"One of the things that has changed is that this used to be you just outscore everybody and you win," he said. "Well, I think it's changed. The defense — the level of defensive coaching, the level of defensive players, the emphasis on special teams has definitely changed, and as that has changed, the style of football has changed.
"You've got to be able to defend the pass. If you go back and look at us, we played really good defense for three years. In 2020 we played great defense, but we played really good defense, and what we did a good job of is we gave up some completions but we kept the ball in front of us. We were able to tackle, and we didn't give up the home run shots."
It wasn't like the days of Aaron Beasley or Canute Curtis or Grant Wiley or Gary Stills or Bruce Irvin, but in the wide-open Big 12 WVU did have some years where they played creditably on defense.
But creditably isn't good enough any longer.
"So, I think when you look back to whether it was Baylor or Kansas State, what they did a really good job of is eliminating those deep pass plays, and their secondaries both tackled at a high level," Brown said.
That has become a goal for this year's defense.
"One of the things, after you reflect back, is we knew we needed to get some veterans, so we went out and added Montre Miller from Kent State, who started double-digit games at corner, was an All-MAC player; we added Anthony Wilson, who's started over 30 games, was a three-time All-Sun Belt player at Georgia Southern; we added Beanie Bishop who played at two previous institutions with double-digit starts."
The question is can it repeat that this year at the Power 5 level? What does it take to win the Big 12?
"The question you're asking is do you have to play at a high level in the secondary to win this league," Brown said. He then answered his own question, "Yes. Do you have to have multiple draft picks? I'm not sure."
All of this will be answered as they play out the season.