MORGANTOWN — Athletics director Shane Lyons found West Virginia’s football team “re-energized” by Sunday night’s 45-minute meeting with new coach Neal Brown, including some players who lobbied for the promotion of current Mountaineers defensive coordinator Tony Gibson.
Appearing Monday on MetroNews “Talkline,” Lyons credited Brown’s emphasis to the team that “now is the time that they start building trust among each other.” With Troy defensive coordinator Vic Koenning expected to join WVU in the same capacity, players loyal to Gibson were heard.
“I told them that their best interest was always kept in the forefront of hiring a coach,” Lyons said.
Gibson’s fate remains uncertain with a year remaining on a contract that would pay him $950,000 next season. While discussing with Brown the possibility of retaining some assistants, Lyons favored the new head coach having autonomy to choose his own staff.
“You build relationships with great men, but a new coach comes in with a lot of new ideas and his guys that he wants to surround himself with,” Lyons said. “We did talk about the continuity part of it — that it may be good to look at a couple of the guys — but by no means have I handcuffed him. He has to do that evaluation of his staff himself.”
Despite some boosters backing Rich Rodriguez, Lyons refuted media reports the former West Virginia coach was a serious candidate.
“I zeroed in on Neal, and I tried to not let others influence me as a result of their relationships with individuals,” he said. “There were a lot conversations about [Rodriguez] with individuals, but I had guys on my list that were a lot higher that I was focusing on.”
Brown went 35-16 over four seasons at Troy, a winning stretch that had Lyons following him for “a couple of years.” They agreed on a six-year deal at WVU worth more than $19 million. Lyons said the assistants salary pool afforded Brown remained in line with the $3.5 million granted former coach Dana Holgorsen.
“Realistically this program needs to compete for the Big 12 championship,” Lyons said.
University president Gordon Gee, during a subsequent “Talkline” segment, praised Brown for presenting a thorough assessment for operating the Mountaineers football program.
“And this is intuitive, but he felt like he could be from any one of our communities in this state,” Gee said. “I just thought the fit would be excellent from a personal and public point of view.
“Obviously he’s a very successful football coach, and we want to field a national competitive football program, but those intangibles are enormously important.”
Video of Brown’s in-person emotional departure from Troy also resonated.
“I love the way he left,” Gee said. “He left Troy with such enthusiasm and such class.I know the people down there are very enthusiastic about him and sad to lose him.”
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