Wren Baker Speaks on Future at West Virginia After Chaotic Start to Tenure

If Wren Baker knew the chaos he would be walking into when he took the job as the athletic director at West Virginia, he may have had second thoughts. He's grown to love the state, university, and athletic department, but he'd be lying if he said these last two years and some change weren't challenging.

When he first came to Morgantown, his first duty was to evaluate the football program under Neal Brown, who had just logged his third losing season in four years. He felt like making a coaching change without truly knowing where the program was trending would have been inappropriate.

Baker gave Brown time, and he made the most of that opportunity, cashing in on a nine-win season in 2023, landing him a contract extension. Unfortunately, the program took a massive step back in 2024, which led to Brown's firing and the return of Rich Rodriguez.

On the men's basketball side of things, he inherited a program that was led by a Hall of Fame coach, Bob Huggins. The incident on the Cincinnati radio show and DUI in Pittsburgh led to his resignation and forced Baker into a coaching search deep into the offseason. With most of the up-and-coming candidates already taken, Baker opted to turn to the interim route with Josh Eilert for a year before hiring Darian DeVries.

It looked like WVU basketball was back on track after a stellar first season under DeVries, and then the next thing you know, he's off to Indiana, and Baker is conducting a coaching search for the program for the third straight offseason.

Not to mention, Baker had to replace women's basketball coach Dawn Plitzuweit, who left for Minnesota after just one year on the job, hired a new volleyball coach, and hired Steve Sabins to take over the baseball program from the legendary Randy Mazey.

Wren Baker — WVU Athletics Communication

During his press conference last week to discuss the basketball coaching search and departure of Darian DeVries, Baker was asked point-blank if all the chaos has started to take a toll on him and if there was a possibility of leaving the role as many other athletic directors around the country have.

“It wouldn’t matter if it was because there’s not another job that will pay me this much and I have three women at home spending money,” Baker said jokingly. “No, listen. You have seen me, unfortunately, too many times in these situations in two and a half years, but I’m resilient. I think I’m actually calmer in times like this than I am probably when times are calm. And a little bit of that’s intentional. When everybody else is kind of calm, I think as a leader you want to apply a little pressure. When everybody else is a little panicked, you want to show great calmness.

"I also have a lot of confidence in what this program is and what it can be. The reason why I do is because we have a long history with a lot of different coaches with sustained success. It has not been a flash in the pan, a one-trick pony. We have been to Sweet Sixteens with a bunch of different coaches. We’ve been to NCAA Tournaments with a bunch of different coaches. And we have a great fan base, and as I mentioned, we have the No. 1 homecourt advantage according to KenPom - those are all things that are going to allow us to be successful. We’ll find another great coach and move on.

"Listen, I love what I do. Are there challenges to the job that you would prefer not to go through? Yes. But I get to come to work every day and work with great people and I get to see young people overcome adversity and become leaders. I’m not sitting around thinking about retirement. I couldn’t even if I was.”

Baker is one hell of an AD, and the fact that he's gone through all of this in a short period of time and very clearly still wants to be here should be music to West Virginia fans' ears. Not to mention, he hasn't missed on a hire yet. So, while this men's basketball coaching search is entering its second week, just take a deep breath and put your faith in the guy who continues to get it right.

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