West Virginia AD Wren Baker ‘Excited About Future’ of WVU Football Program

WVU director of athletics Wren Baker has now been presiding over the West Virginia Athletic Department for about a year now. And in that year, a year that’s been full of turmoil, one of his top priorities has been evaluating Neal Brown and the Mountaineer football program.

On Thursday, Baker offered some insight into his thoughts about the state of WVU football a year after publicly acknowledging he would judging Brown and his staff throughout 2023 to determine if they should remain in the future.

And based on Baker’s current comments, it sounds as if he’s satisfied with what he saw throughout the past year.

“Excited about the future. Think we’re doing a better job at retention and recruitment,” said Baker.

This stance by Baker comes fresh off Brown and his West Virginia team proving critics wrong who predicted the Mountaineers would have one of the worst seasons in program history. WVU finished the regular season with an 8-4 overall record and a 6-3 mark in conference play.

While there were still hiccups along the way and  that bad loss to Houston still sticks out, Baker’s sentiment also stems from the retention of star players and the recent success in both recruiting  quality transfers and high school recruits, often times beating out other major programs for those players.

This has been aided by a significant boost in the school’s NIL collective with Country Roads Trust.

On a separate but funny note, Baker is embracing his upcoming mayo bath. He committed to taking a mayo bath if fans donated towards Country Roads Trust.

https://t.co/LDtGb2Uj7F pic.twitter.com/WjL5n6j7d8

— Wren Baker (@wrenbaker) December 20, 2023

Baker did add that he knows Brown hates mayonnaise. Brown has agreed to take the mayo bath if WVU wins the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.