The Old Master’s Views
The Neal Brown Era is over. After six years, WVU has let go of Neal Brown as its football coach. Brown did a lot of things right, but his teams never seemed to be able to sustain anything but very average performance. His season records were: 5-7, 6-4, 6-7, 5-7, 9-4, and 6-6. Overall, he was 37-35 at WVU, with a 25-28 conference mark. Also, fan enthusiasm was severely waning. Also, WVU is one of just three power conference teams (Rutgers and Texas Tech are the other two), during Brown’s tenure.
I’m pretty sure the decision was already made prior to the season finale against Texas Tech, but that game removed any doubt. Tech led just 6-3 after the first quarter, but after that, the rout was on. They led 35-3 at halftime, and scored on their first seven drives, on their way to a 52-15 laugher.
So, what is next? Potentially, there is a bowl game. The normal portal window for football is about to open up, and the firing of a head coach triggers a 30-day window regardless. There could be enough players deciding to transfer out (and be able to potentially enroll in their new school for spring semester) that WVU would not be able to really field a bowl team. Beyond that, WVU must find a new coach.
“Who will be the new coach” will be the predominant question for WVU fans until the announcement is made. It’s hard to tell who Wren Baker might be looking at, but that won’t stop people from speculating. We can get some clues from his previous hires at WVU, which have tended to be head coaches with a successful track record (several years of winning, often at multiple schools). He has shown that previous ties to WVU or that state aren’t necessary. He did mention in a recent interview that a head coach at WVU must have an understanding of the state, and be able to deal with its characteristics (such as no pro teams in the state, being recognized everywhere you go, etc). His hires have not been “big city” types of coaches: Darrian DeVries is from Iowa and coached Drake, Jen Greeny was at Washington State (which is nowhere near Seattle), Mark Kellogg coached at Stephen F Austin, West Texas A&M and Northwest Missouri State.
Now, football is a different animal that other college sports. Head coaching experience is important, but not necessarily required for success. Dan Lanning at #1 Oregon was not previously a head coach. Neither was Kirby Smart at Georgia. Syracuse had a very good year under first year head coach Fran Brown, who was a position coach at Georgia.
I can see four categories of coaches WVU could look at: successful Group of 5 head coaches, successful Power conference assistants (mainly coordinators), successful lower division head coaches, or a semi-retired head coach not currently coaching.
Names that have already been floated among G5 coaches include Barry Odom at UNLV, Tim Albin at Ohio, Ryan Silverfield at Memphis, Bob Chesney at James Madison, Tyson Helton at Western Kentucky, and – yes – Rich Rodriguez at Jacksonville State, among others.
Hot assistants at power conference schools include: Andy Kotelnicki (Offensive coordinator at Penn State, previously at Kansas), Glenn Schumann (defensive coordinator at Georgia), or Will Stein (offensive coordinator at Oregon), among others.
FCS head coaches who could get a look could be someone like Mike Jacobs at Mercer or Brent Vigen at Montana State.
Retired coaches getting a lot of mention are Jimbo Fisher and Dan Mullen.
Is everyone mentioned an actual candidate? Not really – some of it is pure speculation, some of it is an agent telling a reporter to mention his client, but there isn’t interest in coaching at WVU, but they want leverage with their current job (or another job they want) by making it seem like WVU is a possibility.
We did see during the basketball coaching search that Wren Baker kept information close to his vest, and there were plenty of rumors that ended up being untrue.
One good thing about a job search this year is that there are relatively few power conference job openings. UNC and Purdue fired their coaches, and the UCF coach resigned. That means WVU is facing less competition in the job market.
Another important factor to remember: when Neal Brown was hired, it was met with widespread praise. People in general thought it was a good hire. Things didn’t work out, but it goes to show that we never quite know how things will pan out. In the hiring cycle when Brown was hired, there were 27 coaches hired at the FBS level. Only 6 are still there – some were hired away by bigger schools (e.g. Eli Drinkwitz from Appalachian State to Missouri), but most were let go. And some of the six are on the coaching hot seat themselves.
Wren Baker has made good hires so far at WVU – but this one is his most important one to date. It will be interesting to see how it works out.
