Morgantown, West Virginia – Make no mistake about it, the contract extension and raise that Shane Lyons, the director of athletics at West Virginia, gave to head coach Neal Brown following the 2020 season will haunt him forever.
At the time, Brown was 11-11 and was coming off a victory over Army in the Liberty Bowl. Very average, mediocre results that were certainly not worthy of a raise or extension. However, at the time, there were whispers on social media that Brown was being mentioned as a potential head coach at Auburn, South Carolina and a few others. These “rumors” were ridiculous, of course. No SEC school was going to hire Neal Brown, who had a .500 record after 2 seasons at West Virginia University.
Lyons took the rumors and whispers seriously. He felt that he had to lock Neal Brown down and that’s exactly what he did. He gave Brown a massive contract buyout, an extension and a raise. Now, West Virginia is either stuck with an under-performing Neal Brown, or they will have to pay him at least part of the buyout to fire him.
Lyons has put the university into a tremendously difficult situation and people have finally started to take notice. The Board of Governors at West Virginia University meets tomorrow morning and Shane Lyons will finally be held accountable. Lyons will be forced to explain his erroneous decisions surrounding Neal Brown and the football program, and there’s a very good chance that he will lose his job over what’s happened over the past couple of years.
Losing millions and millions of dollars – which West Virginia University will inevitably do regardless of what happens – is unacceptable in any position and although Lyons is generally liked by university president Gordon Gee and the Board of Governors at the university, there doesn’t seem to be any going back from this mess that he’s created.
I believe Shane Lyons’ days at #WVU are numbered. Stay tuned tomorrow. 👀
— The Voice of Morgantown (@voicemorgantown) November 10, 2022
