Neal Brown Hits Home Run with Graham Harrell Hire

Monday afternoon, West Virginia head football coach Neal Brown announced the hiring of Graham Harrell as offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach. This was a move absolutely no one saw coming and it came together rather quickly. Not only is Harrell a terrific young coach, but he bring something to WVU that they've lacked in three years during the Neal Brown era - an identity.

For those that read my weekly Sunday Morning Thoughts column after games, you've seen me say how I don't understand what this offense is supposed to look like nor what they are trying to accomplish. Brown's play-calling was more than questionable at times, but it was also his decision-making that was all over the place - when to run the ball, when to pass, when to punt, when to go for it. A lot of those decisions didn't make sense and much of that has to do with tangling the role of a head coach and an offensive coordinator.

As I've stated many, many times before, hiring an offensive coordinator will open up so many things for Brown and take a lot off of his plate. Now that he's able to oversee the entire operation on gameday instead of scripting/planning out plays in his head, he'll be able to better focus on each phase of the game. Dana Holgorsen made the same mistake during the early parts of his time at WVU. When he hired Jake Spavital, Holgorsen was more involved with the defense and special teams than he ever was.

Now, what exactly is this identity that I speak of that Harrell brings? Well, if you fell in love with the Geno Smith, Tavon Austin, Stedman Bailey Air Raid attack, you're going to like this hire. Harrell loves to air the ball out and at times, he will stray away from the run game maybe a little too much. This past season as the offensive coordinator at USC, he did go to more of a balanced approach due to starting a true freshman quarterback mid-season in Jaxson Dart, according to Claudette Montana Pattison of All Trojans on Sports Illustrated.

Getting into the crux of it all, this was a move Neal Brown absolutely had to make. He was losing trust from the fan base but more importantly, the players. When you have a 17-18 record through three years with a stale offense, something has to change. You can't repeatedly keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different results. As we all know, that's called insanity and WVU's offense was bordering on the line of insanity if I'm being honest. But hey, better late than never, am I right? This was a hire that Brown had to make to help save his job. Had he continued to call the plays without a true offensive coordinator, this team would win maybe six games in 2022 at most, and he would be out of a job.

What this hire also does is inject some new life into the program. It's hard to get people let alone recruits to "Trust the Climb" when there's concrete evidence that what you're doing is not working. With a coordinator coming in from USC, who has proven success, all of a sudden there's hope. With Harrell and incoming freshman Nicco Marchiol at quarterback, you can see things starting to come together.

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