Cover Photo by Ben Queen/USA Today
Morgantown, West Virginia –Â Nothing has changed. Neal Brown still deserves to be fired. A win against an average Oklahoma State team with a terrible freshman quarterback doesn’t change the fact that West Virginia has three losing seasons in the past four years. It doesn’t change the fact that Neal Brown is 22-25 in four seasons. And it doesn’t change the fact that Neal Brown has been out-coached over and over again during his time with the Mountaineers.
The next couple of days will be very interesting for West Virginia University and will tell us a lot about the future of the football program. While it’s been widely speculated that Neal Brown will be back for the 2023 season, it’s hard to believe that the new director of athletics will do a reasonable evaluation of Brown’s performance over the past four seasons and decide that he has earned another year.
In fact, it would be shocking if that were the case, unless, of course, Gordon Gee hires someone like Keli Zinn, who was the Chief Operating Officer/Deputy Athletics Director under Shane Lyons, or takes the interim tag off of Rob Alsop’s name. Other than Zinn or Alsop being named the new director of athletics, no one else will consider Brown’s four seasons as a success deserving of more time.
With that said, the only logical next move is for Gee to hire a new athletics director, do an evaluation on Brown and fire him. The contract buyout doesn’t matter. The fact that there are no outstanding head coaching replacements for Neal Brown out there right now. Brown has failed and has shown sign of growth or improvement in four seasons. He’s had his chance and now it’s time to move on.
There has been a lot of speculation and rumors floating around, but ultimately look for West Virginia to move fast, within the next 2-3 days, to hire a new athletics director and make the decision to fire Neal Brown.
If the move doesn’t happen fast, West Virginia University will make it clear that winning football games isn’t a top priority moving forward.
