Baker Sees a Motivated Mountaineer Football Program

West Virginia University football coach Neal Brown is on the hot seat after going 22-25 in his first four seasons, although WVU Vice President and Director of Athletics Wren Baker has not given any indication that Brown’s job is in jeopardy this season.

Baker, who was hired as the university’s AD nearly nine months ago, has been asked if there is a win total the Mountaineers need to hit for Brown’s job to be safe, and he has wisely differed. "I have never once talked about expectations in terms of a win total. I just think there's too much that can be influenced by that," he said. "You can hit that win total and not feel good about where the program is. You could miss it by one or two and feel like that was because of a catastrophic injury or set of injuries.”

West Virginia's struggles began during the outset of the NCAA Transfer Portal and NIL era, with some of the program’s biggest stars being poached from stronger collectives. However, since the hiring of Baker, the Country Roads Trust has grown exponentially, and the roster strengthened for the first time in three years.

The Mountaineers gained some momentum at the tail end of the 2022 season with quarterback Garrett Greene taking over the starting role and providing a spark for the offense in a comeback win over Oklahoma, along with returning a loaded backfield, highlighted by CJ Donaldson. Nonetheless, there are plenty of doubters out there and the media picked WVU to finish last in the Big 12 Conference, and according to Baker it has motivated the Mountaineers.

“I think the prognosticators not having very high expectations has helped motivate them," he said. "I think he's helped motivate all of us really and we want to go out and prove people wrong, but there's a lot of things that are done right inside this program."

Baker has been visible at the practice facilities and has made his way into the scrimmages during fall camp and has liked what he’s so far.

“I've been really impressed with not just Coach Brown, but all of our coaches here, and I've spent one on one time with all of them,” he said. “I'm excited. I feel good about where we're at, I feel good about the team, their resolve."

Brown has been noted for the details in which he runs his program, and Baker has taken notice throughout brief tenure.

“I talk a lot about my core belief is you have to value the person over the player and if you value the person, first and foremost, and eventually you'll get the full abilities out of the player and this staff does a great job of really pouring in to developing people, helping them grow their character, helping them have success academically, helping them really planning for the rest of their life. And so, there's a lot of positive things going on with this program.”

At the end of the day, the record will matter.

“We know that we have to win games," Baker said. "Coach Brown has said that, I read his commentary all the time. He knows where we're at and everybody knows that that's an expectation, but I'm really proud of the way that this team has kind of come together and there is a great camaraderie between that group right now.”

The Mountaineers open the season September 2nd against the seventh-ranked Penn State Nittany Lions with kickoff set for 7:30 p.m. and broadcasting on NBC.

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