Three Things WVU Coach Neal Brown Said ahead of the Mountaineers’ Trip to Stillwater

The Cowboys need a win Saturday, but so do Neal Brown’s Mountaineers.

Two teams with high expectations coming into the year, Oklahoma State and West Virginia enter their game at 3 p.m. Saturday in Boone Pickens Stadium with a combined record of 5-4. Brown’s Mountaineers are coming off an open week. He spoke with reporters Monday to preview his team’s trip to Stillwater. Here are three things he said. His full news conference is in video format below.

1. OSU No Stranger to Turnarounds

It doesn’t sound as if the Cowboys’ slow start to the year is going to mean Brown takes the Pokes lightly.

Brown has seen this before — just last season. OSU started the 2023 season 2-2 before going on a run and making it to the Big 12 title game. That run included a trip to Morgantown where OSU hung 48 on the Mountaineers for a win.

Even just looking back at OSU’s loss to Kansas State on Saturday, Brown pointed out that Manhattan is a tough place to play and that the Cowboys had opportunities for that game to be much closer. At 2-2 this season, the Mountaineers aren’t exactly in a spot to take teams lightly, especially teams with as much talent as the Cowboys have.

“If you look at what they did last year, playing in the Big 12 conference championship game, they had two losses in a row, too,” Brown said. “They lost to South Alabama and Iowa State, and they rebounded to get all the way to the conference championship game. For Coach Gundy, and a lot of that staff’s been together for a long time, they’ve dealt with adversity before. They’ve come back. We fully expect to get their best.”

2. Jaden Bray Returns to Stillwater

A former Cowboy will return to his old stomping grounds this week, as wide receiver Jaden Bray makes a trip with the Mountaineers to his home state.

Listed at 6-foot-2, 205 pounds, Bray chose Oklahoma State out of Norman High School. In three seasons with the Cowboys, Bray caught 48 passes for 686 yards and four touchdowns despite dealing with a few injuries throughout his time in orange and black. Through four games this season, Bray has caught two passes with the Mountaineers for 88 yards.

Brown was asked Monday whether he’ll try to gain any sort of intel about the Cowboys from Bray.

“We’ve had this a couple different times now, and really I try not to put them in a tough — these are tough games for those guys,” Brown said. “That wasn’t a bad split, I don’t believe. So I try not to put them in a bad place there because that was a place that was good for him. He’s from the state of Oklahoma. I’ll ask him a few questions, but I try not to put any more pressure on him going back to his home state, going back to his former team than he already feels.”

3. ‘We Gotta Figure Out How to Stop Ollie Gordon’

The Cowboys’ running game has been lackluster compared to its expectations going into the year, but the last time the Mountaineers saw Ollie Gordon, he was running all over Mountaineer Field.

In his Doak Walker-winning 2023 season, Gordon ran for a season-best 282 yards against the Mountaineers and had four touchdowns. In the fourth quarter alone, Gordon ran for 149 yards and three touchdowns.

Despite OSU ranking 14th in the Big 12 in rushing offense, Brown said the gameplan is still to find a way to slow down No. 0.

“He got going a couple games prior to us last year,” Brown said. “I think he got banged up a little bit, but he played really well early against Kansas State. … He’s a great player. He’s gonna be an NFL player. The thing that makes him, he’s got great size and speed. We’ve gotta make sure that we get multiple hats to the ball. We can’t ask our guys to be in one-on-one situations and always get him down. He’s played well this season. I don’t think his numbers completely tell the story. He’s gonna have breakout games, I just hope it’s not against us. …

“You gotta play these guys saying, ‘We gotta figure out how to stop Ollie Gordon.’ I think that’s the mentality. Stops not the right word. We gotta figure out a way to contain him, and I think everything in the gameplan feeds off that.”