Neal Brown Speaks Candidly About WVU Tenure on YouTube Show

Neal Brown made a surprise recent appearance on the Voice of College Football YouTube channel, offering his true feelings about his tenure at WVU.

Brown joined host Mark Rogers for a 20-minute conversation about the past, present and future of the Mountaineers. Rogers asked Brown about what he thought of the West Virginia job before taking over as head coach in 2019, how disappointing the 2022 season was for him, NIL, the Transfer Portal and why he feels his team is ready to win in 2023.

When about his overall assessment his four seasons leading West Virginia, Brown used the word average.

“We’ve just been average. We haven’t been poor by any means or bad, but we haven’t been good either. When we took over a program in 2019, they had a very talented roster in 2018, which was a roster that had 5 or 6 draft picks. This was a team that climbed into the Top 10 in the country and then lost four out of their last five games. So we took over a team that was really, really young in 2019 and we had some real holes and we had a real deficiency on the offensive line, which is one of the biggest factors in winning football games and we had less experience on defense. So we won five in our first year and I would argue that that was a better coaching job than our ten win seasons at Troy,” said Brown.

On what may have led to the program dipping back after winning a bowl game in his second season, Brown brought up the change in landscape, the difficulty of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and even WVU’s strength of schedule.

“We were doing some things and building our staff and then COVID hits. I thought we managed that well. We won 6 games and won a bowl game for the first time in a long time here.”

WVU Head Coach Neal Brown has a conversation with a referee during a game in Morgantown on Oct. 29, 2022. (WVSN photo by Kelsie LeRose)

Brown also called West Virginia’s 2022 season, one that finished with a 5-7 record and failed to achieve bowl eligibility, the toughest of his coaching career.

“And then just under-performed in 2022. We go 5-7. I thought we had a better roster than that. It was probably the most disappointing season I’ve ever had as a head coach,” Brown explained.

While hearing from Brown in a long form interview beyond his normal press conferences can be nice for fans, there’s no excuse or reasoning that’s going to be good enough for Mountaineer Nation. It’s now just about trying to get things turned around for this coming season.

Brown knows as well as anyone that his time will undoubtedly run out if he doesn’t start winning.

Check out the full discussion below.

Soon after being hired as athletic detractor, Wren Baker joined WVSN’s Mike Asti and gave his own thoughts about the state of the WVU football program. It’s worth another watch or listen to compare to what Brown had to say.

WVSN’s Mike Asti Interviews West Virginia AD Wren Baker