MORGANTOWN — You can debate Neal Brown’s efficacy on the sidelines for West Virginia University football. You can argue whether he was the right guy for the job.
There’s one thing even Brown’s detractors can’t deny: Neal Brown is a good guy.
Look at the first part of the quote WVU Athletic Director Wren Baker sent with the Sunday afternoon announcement that Brown was fired from WVU after six seasons.
“Coach Brown is a great person, and he has served as a tremendous ambassador for West Virginia University,” Baker said. “He led our storied program with class and integrity and always put in the hard work necessary to allow for success.”
Those weren’t just empty platitudes, hollow words just meant to cushion the blow of a very public dismissal. What Baker said was true. “Class,” “integrity” and “hard work” all defined Brown’s six years in Morgantown.
It’s just that big wins didn’t.
We saw the kind of guy Brown was before he ever coached a down at WVU. After he took the job in 2019 following four seasons coaching at Troy, he returned to Troy and walked to midcourt during a basketball game to say thank you and farewell.
Some coaches might do that in an email, maybe a social media post. Some don’t do it at all. He stood there in person.
A year into coaching at WVU, COVID-19 shut the world down. A lot of people were nervous about what was next, especially us sportswriters. How do you write about sports when there are no sports being played? Brown felt our pain. He not only set up group Zoom calls throughout the pandemic, but even did one-on-one calls with media members. In my solo interview with Brown, we spent a few minutes talking about him coaching late WWE star Bray Wyatt at Troy.
“I coached Sting’s son, too, at Kentucky,” he mentioned.
That led us to a discussion of coaching Steven Borden, son of iconic wrestler Steve “Sting” Borden.
He didn’t have to do these things. He appreciated that we had a job to do. He helped us how he could. And when writers would be let go from their jobs for one reason or another, Brown either sought them out to personally wish them well or made sure someone relayed the message.
His personality helped him. He knew how to recruit. Remember when he took the entire coaching staff with him to visit Huntington High offensive lineman Darnell Wright right before National Signing Day? WVU went from not on Wright’s radar to getting an official visit from him. Wright still chose Tennessee, but don’t think that gesture on Brown’s part wasn’t seen by other major recruits and made the difference in them signing with West Virginia.
Brown created the 5th Quarter program to enhance character and leadership development among his players. He was ahead of the curve in name, image and likeness, partnering with a company in 2020 for an NIL data services pilot program.
The guy he replaced, Dana Holgorsen, would label those things “CEO crap.” But Brown was really, really good at the “CEO crap.” He understood that being the head football coach at a major university was about much more than drawing up plays and coachin’ ball. It was about building an entire program.
But that didn’t translate into victories.
What was Neal Brown’s signature win at WVU? Not an easy question to answer, is it? Any of the ranked teams he defeated weren’t ranked at the end of the season. He got a “Backyard Brawl” win over Pitt in 2023, but that Pitt team was awful.
There was never a victory that Brown could hang his hat on to show the world that WVU had reached a new plateau. Most of the time, WVU hovered around .500 to end seasons, either a game or two above or below. Last year’s 9-4 finish gave fans hope for this year, but the Mountaineers slid back to average, finishing 6-6.
The writing was on the wall after the Mountaineers’ regular-season finale, a 52-15 thumping at Texas Tech. WVU just didn’t look ready. The problems from early in the season – a rancid pass defense, a moribund WVU passing game that took too many bad chances and threw too many interceptions – were no better at the end.
And the fans had grown tired of mediocrity. The 40,722 fans announced for WVU’s home finale against UCF was mostly a mirage. Wide swaths of empty seats were obvious, fans staying away even when tickets could be found online for $8.
In the end, empty seats and anemic win totals were too much for Brown to overcome. WVU is entering another new era of college football, with revenue sharing and even more emphasis on NIL funds. The seats need filled. The excitement needs to return. So a new coach will get the chance to accomplish that.
Hopefully, that new guy, whoever he is, will look at some of what Brown built and use some of it for his framework. When that new coach arrives, he’ll have a good foundation and good kids to work with. He’ll have some talent there. He’ll have to find more on the recruiting trail and in the transfer portal to compete in the Big 12 in the way Brown couldn’t. But he’ll have players waiting for him who do the right thing, work hard and fight until the end.
And there could be somewhere for Brown to build another foundation. His alma mater Massachusetts is looking for a new football coach. That team hasn’t seen success in a long, long while, and it could use a leader who looks at his job as a builder of programs as much as he is a coach of football. Maybe there’s another college team somewhere else looking for the same thing.
There is a place in college football for that philosophy. Brown tried to make it work in Morgantown. But in a results-driven business, the results never materialized at WVU.
The nice guy didn’t finish last. But he never finished first, either, and that’s why he’s no longer the football coach at West Virginia University.
— Story by Derek Redd
