Big 12 preview: Will West Virginia be better than last year's 3-6 conference campaign?

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Editor's note: This is part of a series previewing each of the opponents on BYU's inaugural Big 12 schedule, beginning with the Cougars' Sept. 23 road opener at Kansas and leading up to defending champion Kansas State before fall camp opens in August.

SALT LAKE CITY — When a team finishes 5-7 with a 3-6 record in conference play, the assumption is there is only one way to go but up.

Based on recent outside observations, though, that might not be the case for West Virginia, which was picked to finish dead last in the Big 12 preseason media poll. That didn't sit well with head coach Neal Brown, who returns 12 starters, a somewhat veteran quarterback, and will like try to build on the 97th total defense in the country that was particularly bad against the pass.

No wonder when Brown was sent a text message with the poll while on vacation with his family, he threw his phone down. From that moment, his vacation was over.

"The positive is that the media has not been, as far as predicting the Big 12, has not been successful in recent years," Brown added cheekily, "so I think that bodes well for us."

West Virginia is just 14-21 in Big 12 play over the last four seasons, a mark that new athletic director Wren Baker acknowledged was simply not good enough even as he publicly voiced support for the head coach going into his fifth season.

The good news, then, is that West Virginia can certainly be better. The Mountaineers bring back quarterback Garrett Greene, a dual-threat signal caller who started the last two games of the 2022 season; and running back CJ Donaldson, who averaged 6.0 yards per carry for 526 yards as a freshman a year ago.

The offensive line is loaded with experience — all five starters and 132 total starts, as Brown noted — and is led by veteran center Zach Frazier. They also worked the transfer portal, bringing in North Carolina State receiver Devin Carter at the X-receiver, among others.

But for the team is also replacing offensive coordinator Graham Harrell, who left Morgantown afer one year for Purdue, with promoted running backs coach Chad Scott. If that's a hint for how the Mountaineers may run an offense that ranked No. 50 nationally in tempo last year, Brown wasn't willing to admit it.

"I think running the football is going to be the strength of our offensive team, but one emphasis on that is we've got to be more explosive in our pass game, and I think that's where we got to show some growth offensively, is we ran the football at times very successfully last year," said Brown, who is in his fifth season at West Virginia.

"What we didn't do as good a job of is taking advantage of that run game with some explosive pass plays. As far as tempo, we want to be able to present ourselves playing fast all the time; then let the game dictate the tempo. But we practice at a really fast pace. We're going to have the ability to go as fast as anybody in the country, but also the game and the style of game we need to play that day will dictate how fast we play."

Faster. Slower. More efficient. Whatever it is, West Virginia assumes the offense can only go up after averaging just 30.6 points per game and ranking 51st in rushing and 70th in passing a year ago.

At least, again, that's the hope.