WVU Football
Neal Brown Feels Expectations Didn’t Match Finances, Expects Change for WVU

During his first public interview since being fired on Sunday, former WVU head coach Neal Brown reiterated something director of athletics Wren Baker said earlier in the week about expectations compared to resources – they were unbalanced.
Brown spoke candidly for the first time in a public setting on Wednesday when he appeared on the West Virginia Talkline with Hoppy Kercheval, detailing his true feelings about his tenure and what he believes is the current state of the program.
One particular comment Brown made to Kercheval aligned with what Baker said while addressing the media on Tuesday.
“You can’t have top 4 league expectations and have bottom 4 resources… We were resourced in the bottom 4 in several categories… Institutionally, those things have to change to get the program where it needs to be on a consistent basis,” said Brown.
He then added that he does expect West Virginia’s finical situation and standing within the Big 12 from a financial perspective “to change drastically” thanks to Baker. Brown didn’t elaborate to the extent Baker did, but he’s likely connecting the dots to WVU expecting to be at the full revenue share level in the new landscape of college football moving forward.
I'll add Wren Baker said this exact same thing earlier in the week, but he also said he expects WVU to get at the full revenue share level based on the new changes in college football. Baker said if that does happen, he then expects the program can get in top group financially. https://t.co/CkDmREgxX5
— Mike J. Asti (@MikeAsti11) December 6, 2024
Baker said that he feels the revenue share will allow the Mountaineers to jump from the bottom group to much closer to the top, aligning their financial situation to match the high expectations the fans have based on the rich history of WVU football from prior eras of the sport.
Kercheval then pressed Brown about if he believes there’s a ceiling for the program, hinting that an increase in the financial circumstances, will help but still may not allow West Virginia to get back to national prominence. Brown declined to put a cap on the future of the Mountaineers, saying he doesn’t like to put a ceiling on anyone and you can always hit lightning in a bottle, much like what happened when Pat White rocketed WVU to an elite level.
Despite taking ownership in his on the field failures, most notably in 2024 after entering the season with so much hype, Brown does feel he set up the program to now be in a better place than how it was when he took over for Dana Holgorsen in 2019. Brown pointed to West Virginia’s facilities now being much closer to where the top programs are than even what was the case six years ago as just one example of positive progression from his tenure.
When Brown arrived in West Virginia in 2019, he was thought of as a young coach on the rise. He had just wrapped up a successful tenure at Troy, one highlighted by getting the Trojans ranked by Associated Press, something he would never accomplish at WVU.
The Neal Brown era for West Virginia concluded with a 37-35 overall record and two bowl wins. Brownโs struggles against ranked opponents and failures in big games embodied the darkest six-year period for the program since before Don Nehlen took over in 1980.
And even though Baker initially decided to retain Brown despite missing a bowl game all together in 2022, he finally pulled the trigger on the heels of the disappointments of the 2024 season, one that followed hype and expectations of contending for a Big 12 title, not crawling to bowl eligibility.
Any good faith Brown earned with the success of 2023 was permanently tarnished throughout his final season.
For a related story, Mike Asti and Cody Nespor discussed the state of the WVU coach search with fans during a live show.