The Wide World of Dirt

RIP The Climb 2019-2024.

West Virginia University announced on Sunday, December 1, 2024 that Neal Brown would no longer be the head football coach of the Mountaineers.

I want to get this out of the way first: by all accounts, Neal Brown is a great man.

Brown was always very kind with student media in my time there, and my friends that still attend WVU maintain that stance.

Neal Brown understood the importance of being the face of WVU football and understood West Virginians. He always handled himself with class and always stood up for his players. He said all the right things, and I wish him the best.

However, he simply wasn’t a good coach here.

This thread is all the evidence you need to agree with me.

You have to win games, and Neal didn’t do it at a high-enough clip. Mind you, WVU fired Bill Stewart after he went 28-12 in three years. I, and the rest of the Mountaineer faithful, would kill to have that success over a three-year stretch.

My expectations for WVU aren’t Ohio State-level expectations.

• Eight wins per year
• Punch up every now and then by beating ranked opponents
• Make Milan Puskar a tough place for opponents to play
• Produce a team that can compete in the BIG 12 Championship every couple of years (a place they have never been)
• Be a proud program again 

That is not too much to ask from this program at all.

The West Virginia staff should emulate the way Iowa State and Kansas State revitalized their football programs.

Every year it seems, ISU and K-State finish in the upper half of the conference, always in the mix for playing in the Big 12 championship game.

In fact, WVU can be better than those programs based on their history alone.

Since officially becoming a Mountaineer, I’ve only had two “good” seasons of football, and even then, they had some lumps that hurt how fun those seasons could have been.

One of them was 2018, the last year Brown’s predecessor Dana Holgrosen served as head coach (people gave Dana more grief than what he deserved; he objectively did a good job here and always had fun teams) and 2023.

I wrote earlier that even though 2023 was fun, it could have been an even better season (they legitimately had a chance for an 11-win season.)

I was calling for the Brown era to be over since the Penn State game this season, but it really hit me that it had to be done when I watched the men’s basketball team in the “Battle 4 Atlantis” tournament over Thanksgiving weekend.

Here was a Mountaineer team with a brand new head coach in Darian DeVries and 14 new players. For reference, a college basketball roster is 15 players, so 93% of the roster was new players, which is virtually unheard of.

They were tasked with facing the #3 team in the country in Gonzaga, a team WVU has never been able to beat. They took them to overtime and won.

Just 16 hours later, they took their old Big East foe in Louisville to OT and lost a close game. Another 18 hours later, they played the 24th-ranked University of Arizona Wildcats, took them to OT, and came out on top.

The Mountaineers defeated two ranked teams in a span of 36 hours and took home third place in the tournament

DeVries has had the job since April and racked up two signature wins. Neal Brown had the job for six years; his signature win was… Virginia Tech in 2021? 

I listened to WVU AD Wren Baker’s press conference on Tuesday, December 3rd, and I wholeheartedly think he is the right man for the job.

He understands how important WVU athletics means to the people of the state. That will be important in making the right selection for this job.

I trust Baker’s judgement. Sure, I have candidates I would like more than others, but ultimately, I trust Baker’s judgment.

The school needs a person that gets us, someone that can get WVU out of this seemingly endless funk.

Bring in someone that can punch up against opponents and not look outclassed.

We don’t need another “climb.” We need a breakthrough.

We need each and every team to know that they shouldn’t have played the Old Gold and Blue.

(Top Photo Credit: Ben Queen/Imagn Images)