"It Feels Like WVU Is All The Way Back & Couches Will Burn When We Beat Penn State" | Pat McAfee

how do you feel about the state of the West Viria Mountaineers right now believe believe like Ted lasso you got to smack the board up there uh whenever you think about the Big 12 as a whole this is a year where with the 12 team college football playoff the West Virginia Mountaineers can make it in there into both of you which I've already done a thousand times we win the Big 12 we're in we got a HomeField playoff game but even if you slip up this year you have a chance to make it into the college football playoff a win over Penn State week one is a massive ordeal for like indicator votes down the line how do you feel like the big 12 is going to shape up and what are your thoughts about how this West Virginia team's going to do in the conference we got a great shot I mean we've made some uh good key player adjustments here in the offseason I know those guys Mike Joseph and the Gang has got those strength and conditioning stuff you know on par 100% And as far as what we got you know we got threats we got running backs got quarterbacks we got wide receivers and we got Cole Taylor love that tight end obviously an absolute beast Pat White when you see Garrett Green Run Wild on the field does it make you have those visions of those Thursday nights whenever you run all over stupid ass Louisville or Maryland these other schools that you used to roing down the field what are your thoughts on Garr green the quarterback I think with that number six he might want up me you know he he's that guy um but when I look at West Virginia now and the new Big 12 is sort of reminiscent of the old Big East right when we came in all the quote unquote top dogs had left and we weren't supposed to be the top dog but we became the top dog now we are the top dog and we should run with this thing I like what you said there because the Big East had transformation there Miami had left Virginia Tech had left I believe Maryland had left there was a team they all went down to the ACC we remained in the big East and it was very similar to what happened with the big 12 with Texas and Oklahoma leaving and people thought the Big East was going to die uh-uh that pit team had a good run whenever we were there that Louisville team had a good run when we were there that Ruckers team had a good run whenever we were there that Connecticut team had a good run whenever we were there but there was no team that ran like the West Virginia Mountain hell yeah I think we should bring back the whole couch burning thing abely you better be burning them couch this Saturday W light them up no no no we don't need that what do you mean bring it back what happened so they banned it why what who [Applause] who well to be clear I think it's always been banned which you know I don't think you're allowed to just burn [ __ ] in the middle of the street in morgant town you are yeah see a lot of burning right over there too a lot of smoking over there hey yeah we got some uh kids smoking CBD behind us here we had a guy get arrested earlier in an Owen Schmidt Jersey uh there's been obviously the good times but Owen thinking back to those celebrations okay and we talk about the couch burning we talk about Sunnys side what it used to be we talk about High Street we talk about frat row if West Virginia beats Penn State tomorrow as8 and 1 Half Point dogs at noon that game ends at 3:30 that's a lot of time on a Saturday night what do you uhoh have you thought about that at all cuz I have I I I thought this was a night game in Morgantown for a while then I found out it's a new game and I was like hold the phone all of a sudden you got another 12 hours after this game ends for West Virginia to celebrate I think they're going to do as such oh and I believe they're going to do a such here's what I'm going to say when we win y all right when we win all right the couches will burn has a phenomenal goatee who a phenomenal leader head coach of the MERS Neil Brown come on Coach coach big doging ton oh yep God me get this out of your way your quarterback staying hydr he drank two bottles while he was up here obviously it's incredibly hot TR the trust the trust the trust the all right Neil what they're chanting there is trust the climb that has been your Mantra since you got here is trust the climb trust the climb yes sir there was times where a lot of people they didn't trust did they they were not trusting they were not trusting to climb but going into this season how last season ended with starting quarterback returning seemingly some veteran leadership it feels like all of West Virginia is behind you do you feel that and what are The Vibes going into the this weekend well this is such a unique place which I know that everybody on this stage really understands that and um you've lived it Pat's lived it at some of its highest moments all right The Runaway beer truck has definitely felt it from the people here in the state and man it's uh when you got momentum and and we have we have momentum right now and you have 1.8 million behind you man it's special and uh it's our job to keep it going tomorrow okay so the vision of the team that you had whenever you got here to what it is now similar are these the types of guys that you wanted to be West Virginia Mountain years under your leadership and how do you view like recruiting and team and portal and the guys that you have taking the field tomorrow well fair question so what I would say if you have to go back to 20 like January of 19 and think about how much different college football was in January of 19 um I didn't have the vision that we were going to have Co I didn't have the vision that um the nil was going to take the role it's taken um and so I think no probably no different when you started this show when you quit playing and decided to start this show like I would say you're better at it now than you were when you started you know ah maybe but and and you learned you learned the business right and it's no different for me like I've been a I've been very fortunate I think each year you learn and like we hit a giant reset we we did not play we did not meet expectations in 22 didn't play very well uh I thought we underachieved and we hit the reset in January of 23 of the vision of how we want to play um and you you study history you study history you hope to repeat it and maybe even exceed it and uh I like the team team you know we built it around we want to be disciplined we want to strain we want to be smart and we want to be tough and we've got a football team that's that has those that identity now we got to go show it against one of the top teams in the country hey and you're stopping by college game day tomorrow during warm-ups which I very much appreciate you've been gracious with your time here the people are thankful for it what is the one thing you're looking for from your team tomorrow like obviously nobody really knows what their team looks like until you actually start playing practice is what it is but what's the one thing you'll be looking for early and be like okay this was a question but now we got to figure it out well the the message has been pretty consistent is hey you want to Peak when things around you are peaking and like things around here are peaking is like the atmosphere yeah the atmosphere around here is unbelievable um we had a radio sh last night that was standing room only uh it's sold out it's been sold out for a really long time and so the message for our team is is man we need to peek at that time as well and and James Franklin Penn State's going to roll in they've got a great team and and they handed it to us last year at their field yep and now we've got to be able to rise to the challenge we've got to be be able to rise to the challenge and show the progress that we've made over the last 19 months and that's the that's the goal saying truck they're Trucking in they are Trucking in from uh Penn State obviously Happy Valley they hopped in their trucks truck Penn State they came down here and uh obviously they're going into a buz saww tomorrow coach which I know you absolutely Conor has a question for you yes sir coach so what do the next 20 hours look like obviously you know you mentioned the preparations kind of been done is it is it more so kind of taking care of the body Pat mentioned Gigi drinking two bottles of water he's probably drinking another gallon going in and then what does tomorrow morning look like how does that kind of go as you gear up for no yeah first of all I appreciate you wearing my man Dan Stratford's Jersey right here like hey supporting hey which West Virginia went to the college Cup last year in men's soccer so yeah right on point yeah right on point so yeah so we had practice this morning uh they've got a little bit of downtime now where we'll use some of the recovery stuff that we have and then we'll come back at 5:00 we got meetings uh we'll do dinner and then head to the hotel do lights out about 9:30 and then we're getting up and going uh pregame in the morning we we kick off at a little after 1200 so pregame is at 88 we'll do a walkth through right after that and do the man trip and you want to the closest thing that we'll have to the man trip it it it won't be ex exactly like this but man the man trip's going to be packed and and then we get off explain the man trip explain the man trip yeah so the man Trip Man trips our walk into the stadium and it's really it's a it's a really a hat tip to all the coal miners and yeah it's it's a it's a hat tip to the coal miners yeah and and so when you go yeah when you go down into a mine you ride in a little trolley cart and they call it the man trip and wherever you're going to work for that day and that's that's us as as as West Virginia football uh acknowledging the past in the state so you guys walk into the stadium place is going apeshit are you listening to music what what are you do are you taking it in yeah here's what I like first of all that's not normal like this isn't normal behavior you all you all probably become accustomed to it but like this isn't normal to have this many people in one setting it's not normal to come to the man trip it's not so packed coach yeah what a cool setting no couch is safe tomorrow hey what's up hey so look this right here is not normal so we go through this man trip man I'm Looking Through The Eyes of my 9-year-old son walking through there and I'm like man this pretty cool you know and so um hey can I give a gift can I give a gift real quick absolutely absolutely so I watched the show last Friday no no no no all right I watched the show last Friday all right I watched the show last Friday so so what do you give the people that have everything right like you I mean you'll have everything you're living the life man and so I'm going to get to these in a second that's good so living this all right I knew it was hot out here so brought Country Road trust beer here we go why come on waiting for a pint all day so proper P well we'll pass those around we're not going to leave Pat out he's got to he's got to be together thank you coach yeah so we got some these are cold now like they're cold beer we're not serving hot beer around here nice cold brother we got we got oh boy Wy what we got Country Roads trust all right 1863 pickle back uhoh so that was a good year hey that's right so hey you all do that on your own but like now these are the black these are the black Cole hats everybody's got one on stage okay everybody's got one but I and I got to all right is coming all right hey Pat I thought you were done yeah I said that uh last Friday was going to be the last time I drank beer for the rest of my life but whatever goatee Neil Brown delivers some country roads trust beer in front of [Music] thousands of Mountaineers you have to chug one down cheers Beers Mountain let's REM this for the rest of time cheers to you Neil I appreciate you buddy cheers thank you coach gone all right that's it that's it don't you start [ __ ] with me one more B already talking about it hey come on dog you know you're going [Applause] out right on the wires whoops it's good for him to cool him down hey someone has a question for you coach yeah coach I I know uh now that we're in the season every week is week to week uh but 20 Big 12 titles just left the Big 12 so before the season did you talk to that about the team cuz everyone everyone saying the Big 12 is wide open I don't believe that these people don't believe that there's only one team that's going to win the Big 12 but did you guys address that at all uh when Texas Oklahoma left just the like about the landscape of the conference that you're in yeah so we really didn't talk a whole lot about Oklahoma and Texas leaving what we did is we talked about this the quality of the league and you look at it 1 through 16 and you look we brought some quality teams in in the last two years you know Cincinnati came in they they've been in the playoff you know uh Utah has been won multiple Pack 12 titles so you're bringing in really quality teams and here's the thing like so we've got to win playoff games the Big 12 we got to win some playoff games and but if you look from top to bottom the Big 12 is the most competitive league but what we've got to do is we've got to go win those playoff games to put move ourselves up the ladder as far as power four conferences yeah and obviously you got to put to work in every single day every single meeting yada yada y but in college football you need the world to see your program and experience your program 50 recruits this weekend Kev is that the ACT yeah we had to turn them away so it's the it's the 50 of the who's who recruits and uh and they're going to see one of the best atmospheres in all the college football it's going to be electric tomorrow I think it's a right weekend yeah it's the right weekend it's the right weekend to have him in here Owen Schmidt has a question for you coach coach talking to Jed drenning you know uh a little bit about your preparation for this season what what is your philosophy on physicality like how do you coach that yeah so I think it has to be a tenant of our program here and we were purposeful about that in Fall camp and Jed will tell you and so we took this approach on which I is we treated we had two scrimmages to full contact we went over 120 plays in both scrimmages and the reason we did that because we've got to be prepared in week one so what we took is kind of an NFL mentality we treated them as two preseason games you know and really trying to tell our team hey this is game three it says game one on the schedule we've already play two full games now this is game three we should know who we are and what we're about uh we tackled as much as they'd let us tackle and so um that that was uh we got a little sound going on here huh no no you're good all right so but no I thought that uh we were really physical and I think we have to be that's how we're going to have to win in this league I dropped my yeah he dropped his be he Dro his beer that has been kind of some of the aura that's really helped our teams in West Virginia over the past be that upper dog there is you got to bring that physical aspect and I know today's game in the modern game we're trying to retain you know injury reduction and stuff like that so I'm just trying to really get a grasp of how a modern coach in today's world gets that physicality aspect into the game yeah so what you have to do there's a bunch of science all right but you got to trust your eye as well so there's science like we never practice more than 3 days in a row you know which for old school football that's crazy right but you're trying to Peak you're trying to Peak when we kick it off tomorrow at 12:05 you got to Peak at that time um but you can't this is a physical game you can't take the contact out of this game it's a collisions game it's not a contact game and we trained our guys during fall camp and we were very fortunate we came out relatively healthy we we came out to this point with most of the we expected to play are going to play tomorrow awesome and I'm looking forward to it Pat White has a question for you coach yes sir Pat earlier coach you mentioned that 1.8 and how special it is um I know you spent some time down in my home state at Troy um where you're not the top dog here you are the big dog so how does that feel to you and how do you convey that message to the recruits and the current players that are here yeah well first of all dapne Alabama met your brother over there yeah and uh so that's that's a that's a special place and was great for uh my kids are here or my daughters are here today my wife's here and Alabama was great to us spent 9 years there and very fortunate to be there and uh first offense coordinator job first head coaching job at Troy so very partial to to Troy University in Alabama um but West Virginia is unique and I'm from Kentucky I'm from Central Kentucky so I feel like I understand uh the Appalachia uh background that both states have uh kind of Kindred Spirits West Virginia and Kentucky so uh I think that works in the favor to understand and and I said this on another program is there's three like programs in the country to me that are only one power four football uh team in their state and no professional sports at the highest level and and that's Nebraska that's Arkansas and that's West Virginia and in West Virginia the the the thing that's unique to me is you have an opportunity to affect an entire State you can affect the the you can give hopes and dreams to an entire entire state by how you perform on the football field you did it you know what I mean Owen did it pat did it you lifted the hopes and the dreams of the entire state by how you played the game not just that you won but how you play the game and how you embrace the people and I think that's why Garrett's become such a fan favorite because he's embraced it uh he understands the culture he understands the importance he understands that that we represent a blue collar people that are passionate about their about the flying WV and they want to see guys that spill it on the field and uh very appreciative of you three guys I appreciate you being here and bringing this here and uh and and I speak for for our program that this is this has been a big lift for us well we're incredibly lucky to be here thank you for welcoming us back I think that is a big part of the conversation alongside R Baker athletic director who'll be joining us later we feel back at home it feels like Morgantown in 20072 2008 right now The Vibes are through the roof can't wait to see what you do with the team this year ladies and gentlemen head coach of the West Virginia Mountaineers new [Applause] Brown thank you man and uh as we wrap up this first hour that's had a little bit of adversity thank you for the hats coach that's awesome we you know maybe dropped off the air maybe didn't have any sound we wouldn't want it any other way here in Morgan toown West Virginia hell yeah