MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Five days after his dismissal as WVU football head coach, Neal Brown made his first public comments in a 20-minute interview on MetroNews Talkline with Hoppy Kercheval.
Brown expressed a great deal of appreciation for those in and around the football program and the West Virginia University community.
“I am really grateful for our time here. I am thankful to the people of West Virginia for welcoming us six years ago. That sounds crazy to say. The days are long, some, but the years are short. The tenure here has felt like a short amount of time. Our kids have grown up here and we have made lifetime friends. People at the Puskar Center and our football staff, our football family, everybody in the athletic department, the City of Morgantown, University-wide, they have been really supportive,” Brown said.
“I am quick to note that nobody died. This isn’t a funeral. It is part of the profession. It is a lot harder on the kids than probably me. We’ll get through it. A lot of families are dealing with a lot worse things. I am full of gratitude today and this week for the opportunity at West Virginia.”
West Virginia’s regular season ended with a 52-15 loss at Texas Tech on Saturday. Brown believes that the margin of defeat in the lopsided loss weighed heavily in Director of Athletics Wren Baker’s decision to fire Brown after six seasons.
“We have a great relationship. I have a tremendous amount of respect for [Baker], first of all as a person and as an administrator. That’s a friendship that will go beyond West Virginia. I am not bitter. We had open dialogue throughout. There was a path forward.
“But we played so poorly on Saturday that the negativity just kind of steamrolled. I don’t think this is what Wren wanted to do. It got to the point where it is probably best for both parties.
“Sometimes, new beginnings are OK. This is the first time I have ever been fired. It is not the first time things didn’t go exactly how you planned.”
In his self-evaluation of the failures this season, Brown first mentioned the back end of WVU’s defense. West Virginia finished 13th in the 16-team Big 12 Conference in points allowed (31.1) and yards allowed (410.4) as the Mountaineers consistently struggled defending the pass.
“The things I would say are my ownership — we didn’t play well enough on defense. Our evaluations over a couple year period of time in the defensive backfield hurt us. We didn’t do a good enough job. And then we didn’t have the money to go spend to fix it.
“We were inconsistent on offense. Sometimes we were really good. Sometimes we were average. We weren’t necessarily bad, maybe other than Saturday. But we were inconsistent. We played a difficult schedule but that is not an excuse.”
In their 3-4 start, WVU was unable to hold a ten-point lead in the fourth quarter at Pitt. Double-digit losses at home in primetime games against Iowa State and Kansas State soon followed.
“Our fanbase had a really hard time with the Pitt loss. And I did too. We lost that game and we should not have lost it.
“We had an opportunity in the Coal Rush game with Iowa State and we failed in the fourth quarter.
“I take ownership. I think we had a team that should have been better than 6-6. It is a team that easily could have been 7-5, 8-4. With the schedule, could we have been 10-2? I am not sure about that.”
In addressing the coaching search on Tuesday, Baker said that he expects WVU to be at or near the maximum amount in revenue sharing dollars going forward. The annual limit is expected be in the neighborhood of $20 million. Brown believes that Baker will bring added and needed resources into play.
“You can’t have top four league expectations and have bottom four resources. Wren is going to change that. It takes time. That’s not something you can overturn. But we are resourced in the bottom four in several categories — salary pool, revenue share, NIL — however you want to speak about it. But I think that’s all going to change.
“You can catch lightning in a bottle and be under-resourced. But to do it consistently in the program that this fanbase wants, you have to resource it.”
Brown would not specifically address reports that have tied him to the head coaching vacancy at Appalachian State. But he said he has no plans to take time off.
“I am 44. I have been doing this for ten years, 22 overall and ten years as a head coach. I’ve got a ton of energy.”
Brown helped WVU lock up a class of 21 signees on Wednesday and he encouraged the Mountaineers to play in a bowl game. Two days later, West Virginia accepted a bid to play in the Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl on December 17.
“I hope West Virginia does well. I love those kids. I am so proud of our staff. Look at what we did on signing day. I texted those guys the night before and I dealt with some of them on Sunday too.
“And I told our team on Monday morning that you should play in the bowl game. We are significantly better than what we showed against Texas Tech. Now you are free of all the stuff and the cloud around me. You are free of that. Go play and finish in the right manner.”