West Virginia releases statement on retaining Neal Brown

After heavy speculation about his future, West Virginia has made the decision to retain head coach Neal Brown for the 2023 season. The move by West Virginia comes after Brown wrapped up his fourth season with the Mountaineers. On Wednesday evening, Interim Director of Athletics Rob Alsop released a statement on the decision.

“Over the past several weeks, President (Gordon) Gee and I have discussed the future of WVU Athletics and our football program with a number of individuals and talented athletic administrators from across the country,” Alsop said. “We were also impressed with the effort of our team the last few weeks. Additionally, we have also had discussions with Coach Brown and our new Director of Athletics, Wren Baker, about our next steps as a department. In fact, Wren and Coach Brown have already connected relating to the future of the program. As a result of all of these efforts and discussions, it is clear that Coach Brown should continue to lead our football program.
 
“With new energy that comes with new leadership, it is time to rally around Wren’s leadership as we move forward quickly to recruit more top student-athletes to our program and continue to develop the incredibly talented group of returning players who are an integral part of our Mountaineer family. I know that Wren will be focusing a lot his time and attention on how we improve our results on the football field and across a number of our programs. 
 
“I will continue to work with Wren, Neal, and the rest of our Athletics program to ensure a smooth transition to the next era for our Athletics Department. Let’s go.”

Brown was hired by West Virginia in 2019 after he had a very successful tenure at Troy. Brown was 35-16 in four years with the Trojans and 3-0 in bowl games. Brown won double-digit games in three of his four years at Troy, making him one of the most popular names on the coaching market in 2019. Brown chose the West Virginia job but things just have not gotten rolling under his leadership.

While the Mountaineers have made it to two bowl games under Brown — games in which they have a 1-1 record — they have never won more than six games in a season under Brown. After making the Guaranteed Rate Bowl last season, Brown looked like he might be ready to turn things around at West Virginia. But things did not start well for the Mountaineers in 2022 and the season snowballed from there.

West Virginia started out 0-2 with a tough loss to rival Pittsburgh to open the season and then an overtime loss to Kansas in the home opener. West Virginia stopped the bleeding with wins over Towson and Virginia Tech, but things went south immediately after that. An 18-point loss to Texas started a stretch of four losses in five games for West Virginia. The Mountaineers stopped that skid with an upset win over Oklahoma, but they ended the year with two straight losses, finishing the year at 4-8.

Keeping Brown saves money

Brown’s future with West Virginia came into question heavily in mid-November after athletic director Shane Lyons was fired by the school. At the time of that move, school president Gordon Gee stated that Brown had his full support.

“We are supporting Coach Neal Brown and our team as we complete our season over the next few weeks,” Gee said, according to CBS. “We are aware there are some deficiencies, but we have not given up on the coach and the team, and they have not given up on each other. The evaluation of the football program will be the first task of our new athletic director and no changes will be made until that review has been completed.”

Brown’s buyout if fired before Dec. 31, 2022, was a pricey $20 million, according to Heartland College Sports. That figure was set to drop to $16.7 million if he was fired after the start of the 2023 calendar year.