The 2019 hiring of Neal Brown as WVU’s head football coach should have worked.
Brown was one of the hot names when WVU launched its search following the departure of Dana Holgorsen. His success at Troy had him on coaching search short lists. Hiring him was the right decision.
Brown was a perfect fit. WVU needed a palate cleanse from the previous coach and Brown provided that: high character, tremendous work ethic, deep interest in what it meant to be a Mountaineer and a West Virginian.
He took over a program in terrible shape. Realizing that, he adopted the theme of “Trust the climb.†It was a smart slogan. It warned fans there would be some rough times early on, but that, eventually, success would come.
Ironically, that positive slogan contributed to his undoing. Expectations were not met and many in the fan base lost trust.
There was hope after last season, with nine wins and a bowl victory, that WVU had finally turned the corner. Then came the 2024 season. The super-charged build up to the season-opening Penn State game made for an equal sized deflation with the 34-12 loss.
Two weeks later, fourth-quarter heroics by Pitt gave the rival a demoralizing win over the Mountaineers. That was an open wound that festered throughout the season. This past Saturday’s debacle at Texas Tech was the exclamation point.
Athletic director Wren Baker wanted Brown to succeed. It was Baker who extended Brown’s contract after last year. However, the disappointments of this season left Baker with limited options. How, exactly, would WVU promote next year’s football season with Brown at the helm?
WVU Athletics occupies a unique space in this state. The sports teams are intertwined deeply with the people of West Virginia. It is not an exaggeration to say the very mood of the state swings according to the successes and failures on the courts and the fields of play.
The university has an obligation to ensure that it is doing all it can, within reason, and maybe even a little more beyond that, to put its teams in a position to reach a level of success that approaches, and sometimes exceeds, fan expectations.
Unfortunately, Neal Brown could not take his teams to that level. That is tragic because there is so much good about Brown. Opposing coaches always spoke highly of him and respected his skills. But, for whatever reason, the wins did not come. I suspect Brown knew that, so the firing would not have come as a surprise.
Now begins the all-important search for a new coach. Baker should start by quantifying the positive qualities Neal Brown demonstrated during his six years here and build on that for the next hire.
