By Kyle Golik
Morgantown, West Virginia is the setting of the modern day version of the “Hatfields versus McCoys” as dueling digital billboards have been peppered around the town of those wanting to keep the much maligned head coach Neal Brown and those that want to fire him.
The firestorm for Brown began with heightened expectations that began back in the 2023 season. Coming off a 9-win season, West Virginia hosted Penn State in the program’s most anticipated Week 1 matchup in many years. After Penn State exploded to a 20-6 halftime lead, a storm ravaged Morgantown with a weather delay, a storm seemingly hasn’t left Morgantown.
After losing to Penn State 34-12, Brown’s next chance at redemption came a few weeks later in the Backyard Brawl against Pitt. The Mountaineers had a 10-point lead with 4:55 to go against the Panthers after a highlight Garrett Greene 28-yard touchdown pass to Justin Robinson.
The Achilles’ Heel of the Mountaineers reared its ugly head as Pitt quarterback Eli Holstein carved up the Mountaineer pass defense on two touchdowns to give Pitt the 38-34 win.
When you look at the metrics of Expected Points Added (EPA) on the Mountaineers’ run defense versus their pass defense you can see why the Mountaineers are 4-4.
The Mountaineer pass defense is dead last nationally (No. 134) in Total EPA Versus the Pass and EPA Per Game. In EPA Per Play they rank No. 133, and Overall Success Rate Against the Pass, 120th.
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When you look at the Mountaineer run defense Total EPA Versus the Run and EPA Per Game ranks No. 23, EPA Per Play they rank No. 22, and Overall Success Rate Against the Run ranks No. 4 in the nation.
This disparity led to the departure of defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley.
In between the defensive deficiencies, Brown added to his misery by his now infamous tailgate quote.
“I get that they want to win. But what I would say is – did they have a good time? Did they enjoy it? It was a pretty good atmosphere. I’m assuming they had a pretty good time tailgating, so if they’re in the deal for enjoyment then I would come back. I looked at the weather and it’s going to be nice again.”
While Brown realized the damage from this quote in his reply began to walk it back in the exchange by saying:
“I get they’re frustrated that we didn’t win. We’ve played a tough schedule. Everybody that’s beat us hasn’t lost. But that’s no excuse, that’s just the truth and the games in our league are going to come down to the fourth quarter and I don’t think this one on Saturday is going to be any different. We need them to help us. I do get their frustration.”
Feeling the heat from the West Virginia fanbase, shortly after Brown’s misquote, athletic director Wren Baker sent an email out about fall sports and gave Brown a vote of confidence:
West Virginia prides itself on the conviction that hard work, grit and determination lead to results. Despite the efforts our football coaches and student-athletes have put forth this season, the results of a tough early schedule are not what we all expected. No one is more disappointed than our coaches and student-athletes, and I have full confidence they are doing everything possible to turn this season around. Your fan support at Milan Puskar Stadium this season has been tremendous, and with five games left, including two at home, I encourage you to continue to support our football team. Our student-athletes need us! I am grateful for each and every one of you and honored to be a Mountaineer and your director of athletics.
– Wren Baker: West Virginia University Director of Athletics
Brown even drafted an 800-word response to the fans’ furor over his poor performing Mountaineer team:
“You want to coach and you want to play at a place where it matters. Just like Joe (Mazzulla) said nobody outside puts more pressure on you than the team – the players, the coaches. You want to do well. You’re sacrificing a ton of time and energy into doing this. When it doesn’t go right, man, it hurts. It’s almost like a mourning process. You lose a game on Saturday and it’s not the same, I’m just saying it’s similar, it’s like a death. You go through this Sunday, Monday, you’re mourning and you feel sorry for yourself and you’re really down and then you kind of turn the page. For me, it’s after the press conference. I wash it away with that one and then you get excited about the next one and that’s the build-up to the game on Saturday.
“But for me, the criticism…like, we’ve lost two games and we played really poorly in the second half and the Iowa State game was kind of laid out and we just didn’t deliver. So that criticism was fair. Fans want to win, and they should. That’s fair. I never take it personal. Most of the people being negative, I don’t know them and they don’t know me. They’re upset at West Virginia football. They’re upset at the head coach, but they don’t really know me, and so I don’t take it personal. They’re upset at the product and that’s fair. They’re a constituent. They are people that pay for tickets. They’re the people that give money. They are people that have graduated from the university. They’re a shareholder. If you’re a shareholder in a company and a company is not financially making money or paying dividends or whatever it is, then you have a right to be upset and complain. I get that. It’s not personal.
“For me, what I’ve got to do with our staff and do with our players is be able to kind of lock that out and explain that to them that it’s normal. I can turn off social media. I’m in a bubble, basically. Dax had a flag football game on Monday, so I was out in public for an hour then, and I’m out in public here for two hours, and that’s about it. I can be in my bubble, I’m not on social media. But our players, they don’t have that. They’ve got to be, that’s how they communicate. So I think you can’t be ignorant and try to ignore that with them. You have to attack it and just say, hey, everybody’s got ownership on it and you chose to be a part of this. There’s some really good that goes with it and there’s some things that are really hard and you’re going to be better because of it. Now, let’s go out and just do our job better. We don’t have an apathy problem here.
“It’s a privilege to coach and it’s a privilege to play at a place where it matters. There’s expectations and you want to go out and do your very best because internally that’s what you want your makeup to be. But for me as a coach, and I even said this last week when we were dealing with that craziness with the press conference deal, but like there’s a different kind of pressure here because you know you’re a hope provider for an entire state. There’s a certain level of pressure that goes along with that. You want to do well for the state. You want to be productive for the state. You want to get positive notoriety for the state and that’s a little bit different than some other places. This job is different. When things are going well, it’s really good, and when things aren’t going well, you’re going to hear about it. To me, that’s fair and you just got to be able to handle those things.“And I always think about this, too; we’re dealing with football here, Tony. And I think Joe (Mazzulla) even said this in his comments, like, if you’re a cardiologist…I can imagine that’s pressure. You twitch the wrong way and that’s it. If you’re in the armed forces…that’s real pressure. You’re dealing with life and death. Like, this is football, man. It matters. It matters, but there’s a lot of other people dealing with a lot harder things than what we’re dealing with.
“And I should have said this too when I was talking about the state but you want to do exceedingly well because you’re indebted to the people that came before you too. Like, this is a program that’s really proud. Two undefeated teams back when Coach Nehlen was here and the conference championships…you’re indebted to those people before you so you really want to do well for those too.”
– Neal Brown: West Virginia head coach
As West Virginia enters its final four games of the season, the crazy thing is if the Mountaineers win them all and take their bowl game, they will match the 9-4 record they had a season ago. The final four games are all winnable, if they get some momentum going, the trip to Lubbock to end the season against Texas Tech will be a true litmus test.
Being in Year 6, how Brown has West Virginia – who was for many decades a perennial Top 20 team, on the fringe of obscurity is what drives the Mountaineer faithful mad. Nevermind his 3-17 record against ranked opponents and nevermind that the Mountaineers lose those games by an average score of 32.5 to 19.8.
The buyout isn’t prohibitive, it is roughly $9 to $10 million, and anything less than a bowl Brown should be fired, the regression the program has endured through six seasons has been enough. Instead of the Morgantown faithful wasting money on digital billboards, they can chip in and help WVU find a new football coach.
