Neal Brown Makes Head-Turning Comment About How He Left West Virginia

In Neal Brown's six years as the head football coach at West Virginia, the program managed to win more than six games just once. His tenure is without question the worst stretch in Mountaineer football history since Frank Cignetti went 17-27 from 1976-79.

Despite all of the shortcomings, Brown stated during his introductory press conference at North Texas on Monday that he and his family believe they left WVU in a better place.

“Just like I spoke about Eric (Morris), really feeling like he left North Texas better than he found it, we feel really strongly that we left West Virginia University better than we found it. We were able to set a solid foundation for that. We had to maneuver a lot of changing landscapes. Took that job in 2019, COVID hits, NIL hits, transfer portal, all those kinds of things, and we leave that in ’23 and ’24, where we had the second-most wins in the Big 12 of anybody. So we really felt like we made a positive impact.”

Now, in some ways, he's not wrong. The team he took over in 2019 was depleted after all of that talent from the 2018 team graduated or left for the NFL. If we're simply comparing the team he took over to the one he finished with in 2024, yeah, he left it better than he found it. The problem? The program should have been light-years better than what it was in 2019, and it simply wasn't.

Six years in, they were still unable to be competitive against the best teams in the league and ended the 2024 campaign on a sour note, losing to Texas Tech (before they bought their roster) by a staggering 52-15 score.

Yes, Brown had to navigate through a number of things early in his tenure at WVU, but so did everyone else in college football. Coaches who were hired at similar programs within the league had more success and sustained it. Brown's lone success story was the 2023 season, where they were the beneficiaries of a light Big 12 schedule and didn't have to face Drake Maye in the Duke's Mayo Bowl.

Considering that the Mountaineers were never featured in the AP Top 25 once during Brown's tenure makes it hard for anyone to believe he left WVU better than he found it, regardless of all the hurdles he had to overcome.

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