What We Know From Wren Baker’s Previous Hirings at WVU

This isn’t WVU athletic director Wren Baker’s first rodeo in Morgantown. West Virginia’s third-year athletic director has already made a number of major hirings during his time with the Mountaineers.

Perhaps the biggest of his career will be next, however, as Baker is now tasked with replacing former WVU football coach Neal Brown, who was fired on Sunday after six seasons.

Very quickly after being hired, Baker had to find a new women’s basketball coach and make a decision on the replacement for former men’s coach Bob Huggins. A year later, Baker had to hire a permanent men’s basketball coach and decide how the baseball program would move on from Randy Mazey’s retirement.

Each of those hirings provides insight into Baker’s hiring process and could suggest how he will approach the search for a new football coach.

The key takeaways from Baker’s previous hirings are that he has a specific process to identify candidates, ties to WVU or the state are not necessary, he wants long-term commitment and he values previous high-level success.

First, Baker’s process to find candidates is very simple. During both basketball coach searches, Baker and his committee divided the major and mid-major conferences amongst themselves and began evaluating candidates. For the major conferences, the committee considered head coaches that could be available and assistants. For mid-majors, the committee looked only at head coaches.

Second, in-state ties are not important to Baker, who had no previous ties to WVU or the state himself. During the women’s basketball search, two names quickly rose to prominence among WVU fans, then-Glenville State coach Kim Caldwell (nee Stephens) and former WVU coach Mike Carey.

Baker instead hired Mark Kellogg, who had no local ties, and revealed that he did not seriously consider Carey and did not get very far in the process with Caldwell before she was hired by Marshall.

“We wanted someone who would embrace West Virginia values and what WVU is all about,” Baker said at Kellogg’s introductory press conference.

In the men’s basketball search, Baker passed over several candidates with previous ties to either WVU or Huggins and hired Darian DeVries who, again, had no local connections.

For the football search, fans have already been throwing out options with local ties such as former WVU coach Rich Rodriguez (Jacksonville State head coach), former WVU defensive coordinator Tony Gibson (NC State defensive coordinator) or West Virginia native Jimbo Fisher (fired from Texas A&M last season).

Next, Baker has previously valued long-term commitment during coach searches.

“We wanted someone committed to building championship programs on the court and building leaders off the court,” Baker said at Kellogg’s introduction.

Carey, who had previously retired as WVU’s coach, would have been a short-term hire for the women’s team. WVU had lost coach Dawn Plitzuweit after just one season in Morgantown and Baker was looking for someone who would be in Morgantown to stay.

For the football search, fans have expressed interest in former Alabama coach Nick Saban, a West Virginia native. Like Carey, Saban has already retired and would not be a long-term hire.

Lasty, Baker places a big emphasis on recent high-level success.

“We preferred a coach with a demonstrated track record of success at the Division-I level,” Baker said of Kellogg. “We preferred someone with head coaching experience.”

The preference for a previous head coach might change from women’s basketball to football, but the want for recent success likely won’t. Many of Baker’s other hires, including Kellogg, DeVries and WVU volleyball coach Jen Greeny, were exceedingly successful at their previous jobs.

That might hurt someone like Fisher, who was fired from Texas A&M after a 5-7 2022 season and then a 6-4 start in 2023, or former Florida coach Dan Mullen, who was let go after a 5-7 2021 season with the Gators.

Baker also isn’t hesitant to hire a coach from a lower level. Kellogg and DeVries were both brought in from mid-majors. Greeny was hired from Washington State, but was only available because of the turmoil in the Pac-12.

Baseball coach Steve Sabins, an internal promotion, is the only hire Baker has made without doing a national search, although he had to be talked into it by Mazey.

“Generally, I’m not a huge fan of coach-in-waiting,” Baker said of Sabins’s appointment. “Probably in a 24-hour period, that’s as much as I have ever given on a position that I felt strongly about in my entire career.”

Baker has used a search firm for each of his national coaching searches at WVU.

For a related story, WVU is expected to interview Penn State offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki.