Neal Brown

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Neal Brown is basically coaching for his job against VT and Vegas has 4/1 odds he will be next coach fired. What went wrong there?

 

[57stratdawg]

Everyone else started running the spread.

 

[patdog]

I think it's a matter of when, not if, for him. CUSA is a garbage conference and he's just not good enough for the big time.

 

[FlotownDawg]

One of those hotshot young coaches who flame out when they get a big job. They are a dime a dozen.

 

[Duke Humphrey]

CUSA? Troy is in the Sun Belt and never been in CUSA....

But I think your point remains. The step up from Sun Belt/CUSA/etc to SEC is gigantic.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Everyone else started running the spread.

Yep. These guys that cling to a new concept offense (not a true system) and never learn organizational/recruiting/analysis/strategic skills, etc. always flame out.

 

[patdog]

Dang. Got him confused with the UAB coach. Sunbelt is a much better conference than CUSA, but you're right about the step up to a P5 conference still being huge. Hard to project which coaches will be able to make that jump and which ones won't. I think most top P5 schools seem to think the safer hire is a successful P5 coordinator or a P5 head coach from a mid-tier school.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Dang. Got him confused with the UAB coach. Sunbelt is a much better conference than CUSA, but you're right about the step up to a P5 conference still being huge. Hard to project which coaches will be able to make that jump and which ones won't. I think most top P5 schools seem to think the safer hire is a successful P5 coordinator or a P5 head coach from a mid-tier school.

Think that dude retired. For health reasons or something.

 

[johnson86-1]

One of those hotshot young coaches who flame out when they get a big job. They are a dime a dozen.

Not that I disagree with the overall point that lots of midlevel coaches won't be anything special when they get to a bigger league, but I'm not sure that going .500 is flaming out at West Virginia. Granted, they don't play the toughest competition, but last year they lost by 6 at Maryland, 3 at Oklahoma, 3 v Texas TEch, 25 at Baylor, 21 v. Ok State, 17 @ KSU, and 12 against Minnesota in the Bowl Game. They beat a FCS team, Va Tech, TCU, Iowa State, Texas, and Kansas. That doesn't seem like a great job, but it's not like you look at those programs they lost to and think West Virginia should definitely be better than most (any?) of them. Basically Maryland and Minnesota look bad historically, but then the win against Texas, Va TEch, and TCU seem decent to good.

I think West Virginia has punched above its weight for a long time and needs a really good coach to match prior performance.

 

[Cooterpoot]

Neal Brown is an Air Raid guy who followed a better Air Raid guy.

 

[patdog]

You say that, but West Virginia is 15th in all time wins among major college football teams. Last coach with a losing record was 4 seasons in the 1970s.

 

[Duke Humphrey]

I think most top P5 schools seem to think the safer hire is a successful P5 coordinator or a P5 head coach from a mid-tier school.

100% agree here, and if hiring a coach from that type of school, have to look at their p5 experience. Brown did have 4 years of P5 experience, at UK and Texas Tech, but folks like Bill Clark (UAB), Jamey Chadwell (Coastal) have none. Hell, Joe Moorhead only had 2 years at Penn State before getting our job.

 

[johnson86-1]

You say that, but West Virginia is 15th in all time wins among major college football teams. Last coach with a losing record was 4 seasons in the 1970s.

yea, maybe I am just missing what makes them relatively good compared to the size of their population. Doesn't seem like they have any advantages other than being the only game in the state. Does West Virginia appalachia have an insular population that pumps out athletes that just doesn't get recognized? They have had some good basketball years too, so it's not just football.

Only argument I can make to support being good at identifying coaches is that they had Bobby Bowden from 1970-1975, who obviously continued to have success when he left. Rich Rod for 7 years who had some success after he left, although obviously it was mixed. Definitely not a bad coach though. Then they had Dana Holgerson, who went 12-2 (8-0) at Houston in 2021 after a rough first season and hard to judge 2020. So certainly they've had some good coaches.

But hard to say how good a coach Don Nehlen was, who coached there for 21 years and retired. (11 years they were independent, 10 years in the Big East they finished 1st once, then T-2nd once, then T3rd twice, 4th or T4th four times, 5th or T5th twice). Then Bill Stewart seemingly kept them rolling after Rich Rod before being more or less chased out despite going 5-2 in conference each of his 3 years, but then didn't coach again.

The only other coach since 1970 was Frank Cignetti, who was fired after going 17-27 and never coached college again.

So in the ~48 years leading up to 2019, 21 of those years were coached by 3 different coaches who went on to have success elsewhere; 24 of those years were coached by coaches who were reasonably successful and never really coached anywhere else to know how much was them and how much was W. Va., and one coach that flamed out in 4 years and then only coached high school.

 

[Antonio Brown's Foot]

He's held onto his job then

 

[kired]

yea, maybe I am just missing what makes them relatively good compared to the size of their population. Doesn't seem like they have any advantages other than being the only game in the state. Does West Virginia appalachia have an insular population that pumps out athletes that just doesn't get recognized? They have had some good basketball years too, so it's not just football.

They are just over an hour from Pittsburgh. That’s more population that the entire state of WV.

In that area you’re either a WV fan or Pitt