MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Two months before the start of spring practice, West Virginia football coach Neal Brown touched on a variety of topics Tuesday inside the Milan Puskar Center.
Brown offered a synopsis of the 2022 season that he said “wasn’t good enough.” He addressed staff changes that include the promotion of Chad Scott to offensive coordinator, Sean Reagan coaching quarterbacks for the second time in Brown’s WVU tenure, Bilal Marshall’s hiring as wide receivers coach and most recently, bringing in Blaine Stewart to coach tight ends, a position group Reagan oversaw last season.
Brown also hit on roster construction, the team’s additions through the transfer portal and early enrollees from the 2023 recruiting class.
Brown is 22-25 over his first four seasons at West Virginia and has won only 14 of 35 Big 12 Conference games as he prepares for his fifth season in Morgantown.
“I don’t stand in front of you in a delusional state,” Brown said. “I’m keenly aware that we need to win. Every decision that we’ve made within the last six to eight weeks has been hey, we need to win. Time will tell, but every decision that we’ve made or that I’ve made has been for us to have better results in 2023.”
West Virginia announced November 30 that Brown would remain head coach just hours after it made official the hiring of Wren Baker as the new Director of Athletics.
In 2022, West Virginia finished 5-7 and failed to qualify for a bowl game for the second time in Brown’s four seasons, while suffering through their third losing season under his watch.
“It wasn’t good enough. It’s on me. I accept it,” Brown said. “It’s not something I shy away from or sugarcoat. I’m proud of how our guys finished in winning two of the last three, but we weren’t consistent enough, and I know that.”
Since winning their 2022 season finale at Oklahoma State, the Mountaineers signed a recruiting class that met Brown’s target between 16-20 players. They’ve gained more players and also suffered attrition through the transfer portal, as is the new norm in college football.
WVU lost offensive coordinator Graham Harrell to Purdue following his first and only season with the program, which can also be said for wide receivers coach Tony Washington, who left after one season for the same title at Liberty.
Scott, who previously served as running backs coach/run game coordinator, was promoted to replace Harrell.
“It’s a promotion that he earned,” Brown said. “Last year, he had the title as run game coordinator and it wasn’t just a title on paper. He really coordinated the run game. They showed a lot of growth. His position room from 2020 on has exceeded expectations.
“He’s been our most consistent recruiter, not only positionally, but from an area standpoint. He’s dynamic in front of a room. Guys want to follow him. He’s really well-liked and really well-respected. He’s earned the opportunity to lead that unit on the offensive side.”
Still, considering Brown was offensive coordinator at Troy, Texas Tech and Kentucky before becoming the Trojans’ head coach in 2015, it’s fair to wonder how much, if any, play-calling Scott will handle.
Brown was responsible for play-calling over his first three seasons at WVU, during which time Scott held the title of running backs coach/co-offensive coordinator. It’s the only time until present that Scott’s had coordinator in his title.
Harrell assumed play-calling duties last season.
“Chad’s going to gain experience in the spring and that’s something we’re going to evaluate post spring,” Brown said. “It’s not something I’m trying to avoid. I want to give Chad some opportunities in our spring scrimmages to see how he does, and he’ll be able to tell me as much as I’ll be able to tell him. We’ll see it and at the appropriate time, when we make that decision, I’ll be able to you what it looks like.”
It seems somewhat likely Brown will again take over play-calling and the head coach admitted he’ll have plenty of input even if not.
“I’ll be heavily involved and I really wasn’t that until the last three or four games last year,” Brown said. “Every opportunity I’ve had is because of the ability to coach offense.”
Reagan, who has experience calling plays, will also play a part.
“He’ll be in the box,” Brown said. “He was involved last year. He’s cerebral. He’s smart. He won’t be the primary play-caller, but he’ll be involved in the process.”
The Mountaineers finished 51st nationally in scoring last season at 30.6 points per game, which includes their 65 points in a win over Towson.
In Big 12 play, WVU surpassed 24 points four times in nine games, and three of those amounted to losses. The Mountaineers averaged 26.4 points over nine league games, good for eighth among 10 conference teams.
West Virginia changed quarterbacks late in the season, replacing the since-departed JT Daniels with Garrett Greene during a win over Oklahoma. Greene started the last two games, though due to a concussion, he was unable to finish the season finale at Oklahoma State and was replaced by true freshman Nicco Marchiol.
“Last fall was the first point where from an experience and talent level, I felt like we could compete week in and week out against the top of our league, and we just didn’t do that,” Brown said. “We didn’t give ourselves enough chances. The three areas that we have to fix, I call them the three Es.
“What I’ve been talking about with our offensive staff is we have to eliminate the errors. Too many turnovers and too many penalties on the offensive side of the ball and several of those at critical times. We have to be able to clean those up. The second e is efficiency. If you look at our P&10, which is a football term for your first play in a series, we have to be much more efficient there and on third-and-medium. The third E is explosives. We had been steadily building and we regressed in that a year ago.”