(Photo by David K. Purdy – Getty Images)
Anytime you are rebuilding a college football program, patience is required. Success doesn’t happen over night, and sometimes it even takes several solid recruiting classes to begin competing at a high level. In the case of West Virginia, the Mountaineers were severely depleted when Neal Brown arrived on campus. It was his mission to build the program to reach the heights they have been hoping for over the last several seasons.
Usually a program will not reap the benefits of a rebuild until year three or four under a new regime. Brown will be going into his third season with the Mountaineers in 2021, and this could be the year that the team finally experiences a breakthrough with him. Not only will he return a majority of his starters from 2020, but he has now put together consecutive solid recruiting classes. The depth is now there.
Brown is a solid coach, and this is exactly the situation we have all been waiting for. He finally has a roster he can compete with, meaning the Mountaineers are set up for a MONSTER season in 2021.
Of course, the results will have to come for this to become a reality. The Mountaineers will have all of the pieces to be successful, but they must finally begin to knock off some of the best the Big 12 has to offer. West Virginia will never win the Big 12 until this happens, and 2021 has the feel of the season this could finally happen. From top to bottom, West Virginia will have a solid roster – the kind of roster that can beat teams like Oklahoma and Texas with the right coaching. It was always going to happen sooner or later, and the stars are aligning for it to lean towards sooner – much sooner.
It’ll be a long nine months waiting on next season, but the excitement will begin to grow in the Mountain State. Nothing will come easy for the Mountaineers, but it is all right in front of them, the opportunity is there. Neal Brown has done everything the right way since taking the WVU job, and it will begin to show next season.
