MORGANTOWN — If 2023 winds up being Neal Brown’s final season in Morgantown, he is going out doing what he does best: calling offense.
Brown, in his fifth season as head coach at West Virginia, did not call plays last year for the first time in his career, ceding those duties to then-offensive coordinator Graham Harrell.
“This is going into year nine for me as a head coach,” Brown said when WVU opened fall camp last week. “One of them I didn’t call plays and the rest of them I did. (Former WVU offensive coordinator) Gerad (Parker) was very involved and called some games at the end of that ‘21 season, but for the other seven years I’ve always called it.”
Harrell made a lateral move to Purdue this offseason, WVU promoted running backs coach Chad Scott to offensive coordinator and Brown announced he will re-take play-calling duties last month.
“For me, it just came back to, the most success I’ve had as a head coach is doing it and the only reason I have this job in the first place is because I was a really good offensive coordinator,” Brown explained of his decision. “We made the decision of what we’re going to be doing offensively back in the December/January term. Chad’s done a really good job as a coordinator and he’s going to lead those unit meetings.”
Without calling plays, Scott’s game-day responsibilities will remain relatively the same. He will remain on the sideline offering in-game adjustments while quarterbacks coach Sean Reagan will remain in the coach’s box.
“I’ve got to be on the football field, I’m an energy guy,” Scott explained. “It’s really about the same, I’m going to give in-game adjustments in the run game. As far as that, that stuff will remain the same.”
What will change for Scott is his mid-week responsibilities.
“More so, the organization behind it,” he said. “Putting the organization to the pad so Coach Brown can go out there and call the game in a cool, calm and collective pace.”
While he returns to calling plays, Brown will also continue to lean on his long-time assistant coaches, Scott, Reagan and offensive line coach Matt Moore.
“I’ve got a really good room in Chad, Reagan and Matt,” Brown said. “We’ve played a lot of games together and I think they’re really bright.”
Scott and Moore offer suggestions in the running game while Reagan focuses on passing.
“Even with Graham last year, Graham really leaned on (Reagan) and we’ll continue to do that as well. Chad and Matt have had a lot of say in our run game going back to two years ago and they’ll continue to do that,” Brown said. “The actual in-game play-calling is a little overrated, it’s more about getting your game plan set early in the week, being able to rep those plays, and then having answers within the game.”
Brown said the play-caller tends to focus on the ball during the game and he depends on his offensive assistants to look at aspects of the game he won’t necessarily see and offer in-game adjustments off of that.
“Answers within the game a lot of times come from those guys who aren’t the play-caller,” Brown explained. “In between series those guys can really help you because they’re not focused on the ball as much, they’re focused on other things.”
Brown got a taste of how that works while Harrell was calling plays last season.
“I think there are some advantages of being able to do that and managing the game,” Brown said. “Taking a step back and not doing it last year is not something I necessarily regret because I think it was good for me from a growth standpoint. It’s been beneficial because it really gave me some time to think about who we need to be here in order to be successful offensively.”
Brown made his name in major college football as Texas Tech’s offensive coordinator calling plays in 2008 and 2009. He leveraged that success into the head coaching job at Troy, where he continued to call offense and then, eventually, he landed in his current job with West Virginia.
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