Neal Brown Discusses Important Recruiting Weekend for WVU

Football returns to Morgantown this weekend as West Virginia is set to welcome the 11th ranked Texas Longhorns in week six. Both teams are coming off a bye week and should be rested and ready to go by game time.

This week’s game is not just a big game because it’s Texas or because it’s a nationally ranked team coming to town, it’s an opportunity for the Mountaineers to pull off an upset and start the season 4-1 — a feat no one thought imaginable. Just as important as the game, the Mountaineers will also be playing host to a slew of recruits that could one day call West Virginia home.

Head coach Neal Brown took to the podium yesterday to address the media for his weekly press conference and stated how important this game is. “It’s going to be a great atmosphere. We’re going to need our crowd, we’re going to need our students to show up and big numbers and hope they stay. The home field advantage needs to be big for us this week,” Brown said. “We’ve got a ton of ‘21 kids coming to this game — it’s another reason I think the atmosphere needs to be at a great level on Saturday because we’re going to have not only some of our ‘20 guys, but ‘21 guys. So, hopefully we’ll have a lot of future Mountaineers in the house,” he added.

Some of those key visitors are listed below. The asterisk indicates that the recruit is committed to West Virginia.

2021 CB Shafeek Smith (Philadelphia, PA)

2022 DE Enai White (Philadelphia, PA)

2023 S Rahmir Stewart (Philadelphia, PA)

2022 ATH Kaden Saunders (Columbus, OH)

2021 WR J.J. Jones (Myrtle Beach, SC)

**2020 OL Chris Mayo (Richland, NJ)

**2020 WR Devell Washington (Bay City, MI)

2022 ATH Demari Alston (Atlanta, GA)

**2020 QB Garrett Greene (Tallahassee, FL)

**2020 K Kaulin Parris (Bluefield, WV)

2020 WR Reese Smith (Danville, KY)

2023 QB John Mark Shaw (Sanford, NC)

Currently, the 2020 class has 13 commits, but don’t expect that to be the case for very long. Coach Brown feels that could change sooner, rather than later. “I like the way our ‘20 class is coming together. I think we’ll make some movement here in the next couple of weeks.” Brown also commented on the 2021 recruiting class and how it may be a little easier to land kids due to not having a rushed relationship.

“I think the ‘21 class will be our first real recruiting class, talking from a time perspective where we’re not playing catch up. Recruiting now is two plus years and I think the ‘21 class will be the first class that we’ve gone through the whole time with,” Brown stated.

Brown also noted that quality of the 2020 class and how he anticipates the class finishing, “I think the guys we have committed, I like them, they’ve proven that they’re playing at a high level right now. I think we’re setting ourselves up for a strong finish in December into February.”

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