A New Contract Coming for Neal Brown?
WVU head football coach Neal Brown is under contract through the 2026 season, but that could change in the near future.
Greg Hunter of MetroNews mentioned on Sunday's episode of Sportsline that there is belief that Brown and the university are in talks to update the terms of his contract.
"There is word leaking out... sources from within MetroNews, from the highest of levels, think there is re-negotiations going on and at some point during the week, there may be an announcement as to what that new contract would look like. Details completely unknown, but something to keep an eye on as we move forward."
Brown is scheduled to make $4.1 million in 2024, $4.2 million in 2025, and $4.4 million in 2026. As the case in just about every contract, the head coach's salary increases as the years go while the buyout decreases. Brown's buyout in '24 is $12.7 million, $7.3M in '25, and $3.7M in '26.
With Kansas head coach Lance Leipold landing a pay raise to get him over $7M per season, it makes sense that WVU and Brown would want to have some conversations, especially coming off a nine-win season in which the Mountaineers finished fourth in the Big 12 Conference. The 2023 season was really the first year that Brown has had a stable NIL collective in place in order to retain players and it resulted in the most wins since 2016.
Wren Baker is very thoughtful and wise with every decision he makes, so I wouldn't expect a new contract to put WVU in a difficult position if things were to go sideways.
