Brown has changed during WVU tenure

Submitted photo
WVU football coach Neal Brown during a game.

MORGANTOWN– During this week we have inspected West Virginia and its football Mountaineers’ place in the changing world of college football, but now we complete our look at “The Summer of Change” by discussing how Coach Neal Brown has changed personally and as a football coach in the five previously challenging years.

If you think back to January 5, 2019, Neal Brown was named to replace Dana Holgorsen as head coach.

There was a certain amount of skepticism surrounding the choice made by then-Athletic Director Shane Lyons as it was a step up from mid-major Troy in Alabama, where he had enjoyed a great deal of success over three years.

Many fans, however, were pushing for a coach with a successful track record at the Power 5 level but, overall, he seemed like a logical choice with a strong financial fit.

No one could foresee the land mines that lie ahead for him as he asked fans to “trust the climb”, one that was far steeper than he had imagined. It turned out that Holgorsen had left the roster in a weakened state, especially on the offensive side.

Then, there was COVID along with the forced divorce between Brown and his long-time defensive coordinator, both of which created unseen obstacles that slowed the climb.

It wasn’t until this past season, when WVU won 9 games, that Brown’s culture and football system seemed to click in with his job at stake, providing him with a contract extension through 2026.

With that in mind we put to him the question of how he had changed, not in his football approach, but in his human approach, about how it all had changed him as a person. He spoke openly about where he had been, where he is at and where he is going.

“When I first got here, we were coming off success at Troy. That was a place I was returning to when I got there.” he said.

He was referencing having been an assistant there before leaving for five years as offensive coordinator and quarterback coach at Kentucky and Texas Tech.

That led to a four-year run as head coach at Troy where he followed a 4-8 debut season as a head coach with years of 10-3, 11-2 and 10-3 that included a stunning upset of No. 25 LSU in Baton Rouge, breaking the Tigers 46-game home non-conference winning streak.

He led Troy into the Top 25 and onto the radar of major colleges across America.

But winning football at Troy and winning football at WVU were different animals.

“We got here and it was different. There was a lot of change. We had COVID. A bunch of different things were going on,” he said.

NIL came in, the transfer portal came in, the Big 12 was changing. WVU football fans’ patience was being tested.

But it was more than football that was changing.

“For me, the thing I probably underestimated the most was life change,” he said. “I was sitting there at Troy and my kids weren’t very old, they didn’t have very many activities.

“Now, I’m going into Year 6 and I have a 16-year-old (Adalyn) who is going to be a junior (in high school) and has played softball all over the country. I have a 13-year-old (Anslee) who is going to be an eighth-grader and has played soccer, softball and middle-school basketball. My 9-year-old (Dax) is getting into a lot of things.

“You are in a different stage of life and you have to keep your priorities where they need to be. You have to change some things, right?”

Not winning complicated it all.

“I think any time you don’t have the success you want to have or think you should have then you have to look inward and say we got to hit the reset on this,” he said.

And that was what he did during the last off-season.

“I realized that the best thing for me and the program was for me to focus on was what I’m good at,” he said.

That led to a self-analysis and led him to this.

“Where my strengths lie is on the offensive side … from game planning, teaching and things associated with offense,” he said.

He then noted that his second-best trait is relationship building. He is a people person.

With that in mind he put together a plan with “a 30,000-foot high view of the overall situation of the football program.

“By that I mean how we are going to attack the calendar year, what does our board structure look like, see what are our strengths and then, if it’s not a strength, make sure we have experts in those areas and give them creativity to be great in their areas,” he said.

Part of that could be seen in the fact that as he negotiated his contract extension the key financial demands were for more money for his staff to make sure he didn’t disrupt what was now a work in progress.

WVU had made that mistake once before, Rich Rodriguez maintaining during an appearance on the Pat McAfee show that he left for Michigan not because of the Pitt loss, but because the school refused to add $50,000 for his assistants to share.

“Sometimes, you just step back,” Brown said. “That’s kind of what we’ve done, then sometimes you have to focus on what you have to focus on. Right now that’s NIL.”

Recruiting and name, image and likeness financing for players occupy far more of his time than he would have imagined a while back.

“That’s the finances coming in and the finances going out. You have to be able to raise money and you have to have a plan about how you will structure the payment of players.” he said.

As for recruiting, Brown has emphasized recruiting not only quality players but quality people, hoping to limit distractions from behavioral problems or academic problems.

“You have to invest time in recruiting because it’s more about recruiting the right kind of people,” he said. “Then, there’s something I knew coming in but that I have a much better feel for after having lived here is the public relations aspect of this job. It’s critical.

“People talk about not having professional sports teams, but it is similar to being a political figure in a lot of ways. You have to be sure you are around and spend time with the constituents,” Brown said. “Managing your calendar is important. I say no a lot more than I used to. I think you have to do that.”

Saying no at times allows time for the important things.

Summing it all up, Brown put it this way.

“How have I changed? Well, I focus on what my strengths are and on what’s necessary. If it’s not one of those two things, then we make sure we have the right people in place to lead in those areas.”