Inside Look on What New WVU Co-DC ShaDon Brown Brings to the Program

Earlier this week, Pete Thamel of Yahoo! Sports reported that West Virginia would be hiring Louisville's safeties coach ShaDon Brown to become the Mountaineers' new Co-Defensive coordinator to replace Jahmile Addae who left for Georgia.

To get some insight into what Brown brings to the WVU program, we reached out to Matthew McGavic, publisher of the Louisville Report on Sports Illustrated.

Q: How well did the safeties perform under his tutelage and was there improvement made?

Matt: "Not only was there improvement among the safeties, but Louisville’s entire secondary was also vastly improved. During the 2018 season, the last year under head coach Bobby Petrino, the Cardinals were an absolute mess, particularly on that side of the ball. They fielded one of the worst defenses in college football, surrendering 483.5 yards and 44.1 points per game. It was so bad that it took until this past season for Louisville to see any sort of improvement. In fact, the defense was their strength, especially the secondary. Louisville only gave up 189.2 passing yards per game, good for 17th in FBS and actually topping the ACC. There were some occasional lapses in coverage and missed tackles, but mainly in the first 1/3 of the season, as Louisville eventually was able to cut down on the number of explosive plays they gave up."

Q: Is Brown a solid recruiter?

Matt: "As good as Brown is as a coach, he is equally as good of a recruiter. For the Class of 2021, he was the secondary recruiter for safeties Benjamin Perry and Bralyn Oliver. Perry is arguably the best prospect in the class, as he was the only Cardinal signee to get invited to the Under Armour All-American Game. Like Perry, Oliver also looks to be a candidate to receive early playing time. In the previous class, he was the primary recruiter for safety Lovie Jenkins and defensive tackle Dezmond Tell. Jenkins was one of the first freshmen to see the field this past season and was one of the more impactful ones. Heading into next season, Tell looks to be someone who will compete for a fair share of reps at nose tackle."

Q: What kind of person is he?

Matt: "He is extremely well-liked. Head coach Scott Satterfield did an excellent job of not only changing the culture of the program after the Petrino era collapsed but bringing in assistant coaches who shared his message of preaching family. Each one of the assistant coaches on staff, including Brown, have been very successful at getting players to buy into the program. I have no doubt this will carry over into West Virginia."

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