Dec 27, 2023 By Bob Hertzel 6 min read

MORGANTOWN, W.Va – We have reached the conundrum moment in the football season for West Virginia.

Wednesday is Bowl day, and it is a time that any bowl team must ask the chicken or the egg question of whether it is the end of the 2023 season or the beginning of the 2024 season.

Which comes first? Is it the chicken? Is it the egg? Is it the start of a new season or the end of the old season?

The site is Charlotte, North Carolina; the game is the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. As the two 8-4 teams clash, each having reached this moment in time in diabolically different manners, each represents its version of what college football has become.

While the calendar doesn’t say that it’s New Year’s Eve, it is exactly that for both teams — a time to ring out the old and bring in the new, a time to look back and see what might have been and a time to look forward to see what might be.

North Carolina’s “might have been” was a 6-0 start, a star quarterback named Drake Maye who figures to be one of the top picks of this year’s NFL draft, but a season that fell apart late with Maye among a number of key players who have opted out of the bowl.

West Virginia’s “might have been” was a season that started by being picked 14th in the Big 12’s preseason poll. An early injury to the Mountaineers’ unproven quarterback Garrett Greene made it look like a lost year and a time when they would be changing coaches, but they rallied late.

As North Carolina was coming apart, WVU was pulling together. As UNC was losing, WVU was winning. That is how they are as they collide at 5:30 p.m. on ESPN.

The end or the beginning?

Neal Brown has an answer.

“We need to finish,” he said in his pre-bowl media session. ‘We’re still in a mindset where we have to prove guys wrong. It is the start of what’s to come because we get a lot of work with the young guys. It’s like an extra spring ball. But we are still in the mindset of finishing the season off.”

It is both an end to a season in which Brown kept his job and where pride swelled in the late-season turnaround.

Brown has worked that into his bowl preparation, creating a situation where players who elsewhere would have gone into the portal or opted out of the bowl will play. They include the likes of Greene, his highlight-reel running back Jaheim White, All-American cornerback Beanie Bishop and offensive tackle Doug Nester.

Its only potential game-changing absences are All-American center Zach Frazier, who is out with injury, to be replaced at the position by Brandon Yates, and running back CJ Donaldson, also out with injury.

The start of one year or the end of the next? What is it, Neal Brown?

“We talk about this, too,” Brown answered. “It’s the finale for ’23, a chance to get to nine wins and that’s really important. But it’s also kind of the start of ’24, too, and for the O-line that’s really the case because Yates is playing.”

The truth is it is both the chicken and the egg, this bowl thing.

Last year, for example, WVU didn’t go to a bowl and the season just sort of ended. There really was no chance at a rebirth, but Brown has noticed a huge difference this December from last.

“Winning makes it different,” he said.

Last year, there were doubts, unanswered questions and no way to answer them. The portal was flowing outward, and, as is the case in the modern football system, you couldn’t really put together your team with the next year in mind.

“As a coach, you don’t really feel you can say this is my team, because of portal dates, until the first day of fall camp. That’s when you have your team, so it’s really a different feel the whole time. Some of it is our leadership is better; we made some significant changes schematically on defense; we really changed who we were offensively, and the locker room dynamics are a lot better.

“This December is quite a bit different than a year ago. I think our outlook is much more positive, both in-house and from the outside.”

And the No. 1 thing that makes it different is that Garrett Greene goes into the bowl game established as not only the starting quarterback but with the potential to become one of the nation’s most dynamic — if he didn’t earn that with his play through the season’s final seven games.

He and Neal Brown have progressed from a work in progress to a football offensive philosophy.

“It kind of gradually happened,” Greene said. “As he and I got more comfortable with me being his quarterback and him calling plays for us, I think as that relationship developed, he slowly started putting more and more on me to where the last month, month-and-a-half of the season, there was a lot more on my plate. It starts with preparation. He’s really good about communicating the game plan and communicating all the keys I needed to know.”

Brown let Greene take the reins on the field while developing an eclectic run-first offense that could win inside and outside. Greene was allowed to take advantage of his greatest assets: running the ball and throwing deep.

“Kind of the last seven games, our O-line, really, really, started playing at a very elite level. When they’re playing really, really, well, our run game is really good and the downfield passes and all of our quick game stuff falls into place after that,” Green said.

“I think it all starts with how well our offensive line is playing. As an offense, we all kind of felt in sync and in rhythm and I think the results showed that.”

The major question is whether they can regain that rhythm after a month-long layoff.

“The regular season you are in rhythm,” Brown said. “Everything’s played out … your Mondays are the same; your Tuesdays are the same; your Wednesdays are the same, so guys stay in a really good rhythm. But when you get into bowl prep there’s really no rhythm.

“Different people handle their bowls in different ways. We want to be the freshest and to have our guys really excited to play.”