Cover Photo: Ben Queen/USA Today
Morgantown, West Virginia – Following the 2021-2022 season, Neal Brown decided that it was finally time to hire a legitimate offensive coordinator to call plays for the Mountaineers by hiring Graham Harrell, who was the offensive coordinator at USC prior to coming to Morgantown.
“Since the end of the season, I have spent time reflecting on the program, and take responsibility, knowing we have to be better offensively,” Brown said after West Virginia finished 6-7. “I’ve been serving in a dual role as the offensive coordinator and head coach, and we need to bring in another voice for the offense.”
The Mountaineers finished 5-7 last season, Harrell stayed only one season before leaving for the same job at Purdue, and now West Virginia has an opening at offensive coordinator once again.
Ultimately, the only person Neal Brown really trusts is…well, Neal Brown.
Brown has had success calling plays in the past during his time as an offensive coordinator at Texas Tech, Kentucky and Troy, but his offense has been far too vanilla and predictable at West Virginia.
Brown has the opportunity to bring in a young, talented offensive coordinator now to run the offense, but the reality is that Brown is too stubborn, too obstinate to make a decision that will benefit the program. He’s far more concerned about benefitting himself to see what everyone else following the Mountaineers clearly sees; he’s in over his head as a head coach and certainly doesn’t need the added responsibility of calling plays as well. On top of all that, he’s also just not very good at calling plays.
Brown is neither creative nor innovative enough to have anything but a very average, vanilla, ordinary offense that will never be successful in the Big 12 Conference. His poor on-the-field decision-making and lack of guts on big calls makes him completely out-matched in every way against the far more talented coaches in the conference.
While it’s unlikely that any respectable offensive coordinator would choose to work for Neal Brown right now considering Brown is almost certainly facing termination after next season, anyone with any play-calling experience would be better than Neal Brown with one of his lackeys like Sean Reagan or Matt Moore as his co-offensive coordinator happening.
Unfortunately, it appears that this is what is going to happen. Brown will likely promote Chad Scott (current running backs coach), Sean Reagan (tight ends) or Matt Moore (offensive line) to “offensive coordinator” while he ultimately calls the plays behind the scenes. Neal Brown’s ego and stubborn nature continues to get in the way of progress at West Virginia.
It's becoming pretty clear that Neal Brown is going to be his own offensive coordinator again next season. Can this guy make any worse decisions? Unbelievable. #WVU
— The Voice of Morgantown (@voicemorgantown) January 10, 2023
