West Virginia Head coach Neal Brown met with the media for his weekly press conference Monday afternoon and discussed the coaching change on the defensive side of the ball, among other topics.

“Qualified. He’s ready to step up. He’s been very successful every time we’ve put him in charge. Whether he’s in charge of recruiting, whether it’s on the punt team where he’s took over, he’s been the organizer on special teams and has always excelled in leadership roles. He has experience with the linebackers here, but he’s also coached safeties in the past and he’s called the shots before. defense. I’m excited for him.

“Tony Thompson has been our leader on our punt blocking team all year. He will add the responsibilities of the punt team and will be the leader of the punt team. And Chris Haering has been the leader on the kickoff and kickoff return all year, he will continue to play that role. This is how we will allocate the special teams.

“I think consistency is the main problem. Sometimes we played very well on defense. If you look at the first three quarters against Arizona, I’d say it’s a winning defense. The first half against Kansas State, I would say winning the football. Second half against Kansas, it’s winning the football. We just haven’t been consistent. This is the main problem. We must learn lessons and minimize explosives. From a staff point of view, they will be the same people. We’re not like the NFL. We don’t do any exchanges or anything. The one we have is the one we have. We need to do a better job of aligning ourselves. We need to do some things that are less predictable. We can’t give them the answers to the test. We have to do a better job of concealing, whether it’s our movement up front or our coverages in the secondary, we have to do a better job in that area.

“Defensively on the defensive line, Elijah Kinsler, who was kind of our sixth guy. He’s been on the sidelines whether he plays or not these last four games. But I thought he had a really good week. At linebacker, Rickey Williams. He’s coming. He missed most of fall camp due to injury, but he’s what we’re looking for at linebacker. And then DBs, Aden Nelson was good and we need him to step up, so hopefully he can put himself in position to play that last month. Jason Cross did a good job. He can run. He has a bright future. He must gain weight. And Keyshawn Robinson, who has been a really good special teams player for us on kickoffs and punt coverage, had a good week as well.

“Diore Hubbard had two days out of three where he was really good. He was really good yesterday. Up front, Kyle Altuner was released and trained hard last week and showed some good things. And then I thought of Justin Terry and Lucas Austin, the two young tackles did great things during the week. And then Brandon Rehmann, he probably had his best day as a climber yesterday. He continues to get stronger and could potentially help us on special teams this month.

“I would say Garrett (Greene) is doubtful for this week. (Aubrey) Burks, (Ayden) Garnes and (Jaden) Bray will all be out.

“I think first of all, he was very effective in the game and he didn’t give up. What does he need to support? He must continue to take care of football. He needs to continue to be effective and move the chains on third downs. Now what do we need to improve? We have to hit big balls. We need to get some shots down the field, which he did. He hit the big blow to Traylon (Ray). We missed a few, but we need to continue to grow in this area. There was some decision making in the running game that we need to clean up. I think for us it’s about putting him in the best situation possible from a game planning standpoint and how we call it. If we continue to do that, then I think he will play well.

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