Mountaineers having no trouble getting motivated as Penn State comes to town

Aug. 29—MORGANTOWN — Neal Brown scoffs at the idea his players need any extra motivation this week. Playing in front of a sold-out home crowd against the No. 8 team in the country should be motivation enough when West Virginia hosts Penn State on Saturday (noon, FOX).

Fans certainly remember what happened in last year’s game—when Penn State scored an unnecessary extra touchdown with less than 10 seconds on the clock—and are hoping the Mountaineers can exact some revenge.

Brown, on the other hand, isn’t “It just is what it is. I’m really not using it, ” he said. “They scored late and I don’t really necessarily have a problem with it.”

Brown isn’t using the late touchdown as extra motivation, but his players are.

“Of course that upset us, ” said senior defensive end Edward Vesterinen. “This past week on the TVs for our meetings and everything, that’s the only clip we’ve been playing all the time. I’ve seen that clip like 100 times in the past week. It just angers me.”

The clip, a five-yard run by backup quarterback Beau Pribula, includes offensive lineman JB Nelson making an ‘it’s over’ gesture, another point of contention for Vesterinen.

“I even know the celebration the one offensive lineman did, ” he said. “I took it very personal and I hope everyone on our team took it very personal.”

Brown’s point isn’t that his players shouldn’t care about the late score, more that he wants them to be more concerned about what happened in the third quarter of that game and not just the last 10 seconds.

“The score of the game was the score of the game, ” he said. “We had a chance to win the game in the third quarter when winning plays were required and we didn’t make those plays, they did. They beat us and now we’ve got an opportunity to play them at home.”

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/mountaineers-having-no-trouble-getting-023200340.html

Author : The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

Publish date : 2024-08-30 02:32:00

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