Quick Hits: Neal Brown recaps Albany, previews Backyard Brawl at Pitt

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — It’s Backyard Brawl week, and the air just feels a little different inside the Milan Puskar Team Center in Morgantown.

“[It is] one of the best rivalries in all of college sports,” WVU head coach Neal Brown said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”

Here are the biggest takeaways from Brown’s weekly press conference ahead of WVU football’s rivalry game Saturday afternoon .

Players of the week from UAlbany game

After reviewing the tape, Brown is as pleased with his team’s performance from Saturday as he was after the game.

“I think those games are hard sometimes because you’re not only supposed to win, but you’re supposed to win by a lot, and Albany is a good team,” he said. “They’re going to have a successful FCS season, and they’re really well-coached.”

According to Brown, these are the coach-appointed players of the week from the UAlbany game over the weekend:

• Offensive: CJ Donaldson
• Defensive: Reid Carrico
• Special Teams: Ben Cutter
• Offensive Lineman: Wyatt Milum
• Blue Collar: Fatorma Mulbah, Nick Malone, Treylan Davis
• Scout Team: Greg Genross, Curtis Jones, Donovan Grayson

Respecting the rivalry

Pitt enters the Backyard Brawl with two wins to start the season and a fire in its belly after it did not score a touchdown in a 17-6 road loss to WVU in Morgantown last fall.

“They’re playing very well,” Brown said. “They’re 2-0 coming off a huge win at Cincinnati, and they’re 2-0 and they probably haven’t played their best.”

Unlike most other Power-Four programs, WVU will play its second game against a Power-Four opponent in its nonconference schedule when it takes on Pitt.

“The last rivalry game we were in, we did not show up,” Brown said. “We did not participate at a very high level, so we’re thankful for an opportunity to get back in the arena.”

Improving the secondary

If there was one weakness that Albany exploited, it was WVU’s pass defense. The Mountaineers allowed the Great Danes to throw for over 300 yards Saturday night, which was the most against WVU by an FCS opponent in Mountaineers history.

“First of all, we need to play with better technique,” Brown said. “At corner, we just didn’t play very [well]. We’ve got guys that can play. They’ve played well before.”

He did not place blame just on the secondary, though, as the WVU coaches feel that their linebackers could do a better job in coverage.

“We’re primarily a zone team, and our underneath-droppers just weren’t where they were supposed to be,” he said.

Fixing the schedule

The winner of Saturday’s game will take the upper-hand in the renewed four-game chapter of the Backyard Brawl’s history as the two teams are not scheduled to meet again until 2029 after they return to Morgantown next fall.

“We need to get our schedule fixed, and we’re in the process of kind of doing that,” Brown said.

“I think it’s a series that needs to be played,” he added. “It’s important. I think Pitt wants to play it. We want to play it. College football’s so up in the air. Nobody really knows what the future looks like.”

Alabama (2026, 2027) and Tennessee (2028) are WVU’s premier nonconference opponents during the rivalry’s hiatus.

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