MORGANTOWN — Neal Brown’s time as West Virginia University’s football coach is officially over.
The university announced Sunday afternoon that it had parted ways with Brown after six seasons, a decision that came on the heels of a blowout loss to Texas Tech to end the regular season. The loss dropped WVU to 6-6 on the year, the fifth time in Brown’s six seasons he finished with no better than six wins in the regular campaign.
“Coach Brown is a great person, and he has served as a tremendous ambassador for West Virginia University,” said WVU Athletic Director Wren Baker in a university release. “He led our storied program with class and integrity and always put in the hard work necessary to allow for success. We are grateful to Neal, his wife, Brooke, and their children for their contributions to our university, community and state, and we wish them the very best in their next endeavor.”
The dismissal will come with a cost to WVU. According to his contract, Brown is owed 75% of the remainder of his deal, which is estimated to be just under $10 million.
Brown came to WVU after four very successful seasons as head coach at Troy. He finished with at least 10 wins in each of his last three seasons with the Trojans, with a trio of bowl victories. That included wins at No. 25 LSU in 2017 and at Nebraska in 2018.
He came to WVU hoping to match that success in the Big 12, but it never happened. The Mountaineers hovered around average for the majority of his tenure. He beat only three nationally ranked teams in 72 games with WVU, and none of those three finished the season in the Top 25.
The Top 25 proved elusive for the Mountaineers at the same time. Only three Power Four conference teams haven’t been ranked in the Associated Press sportswriters Top 25 since 2019 – Texas Tech, Rutgers and WVU. WVU finished ranked No. 25 in the coaches poll just once, after a 9-4 finish and a Duke’s Mayo Bowl win in 2023.
That finish gave WVU and its fans optimism for the 2024 campaign. A sizable chunk of his players were returning, including quarterback Garrett Greene and defensive lineman Sean Martin. Players and coaches talked about contending for the Big 12 title, especially after Oklahoma and Texas, the titans of the conference’s previous iteration, had left for the SEC.
The fanbase was hungry for the team to reach a new plateau, putting more than 62,000 into Milan Puskar Stadium for WVU’s season opener versus Penn State. The Nittany Lions pummeled West Virginia in that game 34-12. West Virginia went 0-2 in rivalry games, blowing a 10-point lead in the game’s last 4:55 in a 38-24 loss. Another low came in back-to-back nationally televised night games against ranked conference foes. WVU lost to Iowa State 28-16 and Kansas State 45-18 in those contests.
Defensive struggles became a theme for WVU this season, as the Mountaineers ranked near the bottom of the Football Bowl Subdivision in several key defensive categories. WVU gave up at least 45 points three times in 2024, all from Oct. 19 on. In an attempt to reverse those fortunes, Brown fired defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley on Oct. 29, promoting linebackers coach Jeff Koonz to the role.
It didn’t help. West Virginia’s defense hit bottom in a 52-15 loss at Texas Tech where the Mountaineers trailed 35-3 at halftime and 42-3 after the first drive of the second half. WVU had allowed 49 points in a home loss to Baylor two games before.
Brown finished 37-35 overall at West Virginia, including 25-28 in the Big 12. His teams have reached four bowl games in the six seasons, including this season and a bowl game that won’t be determined until Sunday. An interim head coach has not yet been named for that bowl. The Mountaineers won the Liberty and Duke’s Mayo bowls on Brown’s watch.
Now the university will turn to hiring its next head coach.
“We will keep our focus on the incredible young men in our program and preparing for our bowl game,” Baker said. “Our national search for WVU’s 36th head football coach is already underway. I am confident that with the strong alignment among the university leadership, our passionate supporters, our proud history and our willingness to invest, we will have an outstanding pool of candidates.”
Among the names bandied about by pundits is Clarksburg native Jimbo Fisher, who won a national title at Florida State, but was fired from Texas A&M after an uneven tenure there. Another is former WVU coach Rich Rodriguez, who led the Mountaineers to some of its greatest victories in the early 2000s, but had an acrimonious breakup after he left for Michigan’s head coaching job in 2007. Rodriguez lasted just three seasons with the Wolverines, then spent six seasons at Arizona before being fired there.
Rodriguez has spent the last three seasons as head coach at Jacksonville State, where he has gone 26-9 and led a successful transition from the Football Championship Subdivision to Conference USA. JSU will host the C-USA championship game this week.
Brown himself already has been connected to another head coaching job, at his alma mater Massachusetts, which recently fired coach Don Brown.
— Story by Derek Redd
