Quick Hits: Everything Neal Brown Said at Big 12 Media Days
Opening statement
"Thank you all for being here. Proud to represent West Virginia University and the great state of West Virginia. Want to welcome Mr. Yormark to the Big 12. It's a crazy time in college football as everybody in this stadium knows and I feel really confident about the leadership of our conference moving forward. Staff adjustments on offense, highlighted by the addition of offensive coordinator Graham Harrell has been very beneficial. We remade our roster to mirror the type of football team that that we want to be and that gives us the best opportunity to win in this league. We've had 33 additions to our roster since January. Our work ethic, our leadership, and our team chemistry are much improved and we're experiencing great success on the recruiting trail."
If defense can maintain recent success
"We think this this defensive unit has the opportunity to be the best that we fielded so far. We're never going to lose what makes West Virginia special and that's a toughness. You know, we really try to mirror the the mindset of our state - a blue collar group that goes to work and is really proud of their heritage. And that's the same fundamentals that we're trying to look for on the defensive side of the ball every Saturday. I like our group. It's a group that has had unique paths. If you look at a guy like Lee Kpogba, who's came in in spring ball, who will be our starting Mike linebacker; not a traditional path, but here he is, and we think he's got a chance to be one of the better linebackers in our league. Charles Woods who's representing us today was an FCS All-American that made the jump to Power Five football and had the leading coverage numbers in our league, according to PFF. I like the pieces that we've added. I think through the portal on defense, what we were looking to add is guys that were experienced and that were selfless and can be great teammates. So we've done that."
Thoughts of new OC Graham Harrell
"What Graham's brought is, he's brought a different energy about him. He's confident without being arrogant. He's extremely humble. It helps that he was a great player in this league and I think that gets the players attention on your current roster, but also in recruiting. He's had great success, not only at USC, but at North Texas as well. He's been able to have success with different types of players in different types of offenses. And so, I'm excited with what he can bring. He's been a great staff member. He's got a great feel on game day and so that's something that I think it's gonna be a huge positive not only for our players but for me, having a great feel on game day."
Players managing time with NIL opportunities
"I think that we live in an era now where there's a lot of pulls on our players times and the ability to manage time not only for the student athletes, for staff or myself, it gets harder and harder. You know, and I'm for name, image, and likeness. I think I said this in this exact same chair here a year ago. We've got to figure out some guardrails on it where we can we can still help student athletes, but it's not necessarily used as an inducement. A lot of our preparation for our players is about time management. Because we feel like the thing that everybody has the same is the same amount of time and how you manage that is a real differential in the success of each individual. And so with name, image, and likeness, that's been a huge part of what we're doing. With with the character development piece of of our Fifth Quarter program."
Resumption of the Backyard Brawl
"Well, it's an important rivalry. I wasn't there when the initial contract was signed to play Pitt. Shane Lyons, our athletic director, he asked me about the continuation of the series which we'll do later in the decade, and I was for it. It's really important for us to play regional rivalries. The Backyard Brawl, it will be my first opportunity to be a part of it. Our fan base is extremely passionate about that game. And so it's a game that I would be in favor of playing each year. I think it's a great kickoff for college football. You know, we're not playing on on so called week zero but we're the premier Power Five game versus Power Five opponent on Thursday night and our guys are excited. It's been a great carrot for our guys as we go through winter, through spring ball, now through summer workouts to know that man, we've got not only a game to look forward to, but it's a rivalry game that's going to be in primetime."
If traveling is an issue for WVU in the Big 12
"It's not a football in, right? And I can only speak from a football perspective. The travel is not that big a deal. You're going to do four away games and at least a couple trips to Texas each year. Some years you're gonna have five away games, but you're talking about the difference between a two hour flight and maybe a two and a half hour flight. The only thing that's detrimental is sometimes if you play a night game on the road in Lubbock or in Fort Worth, then you're looking at a really early Sunday morning return. And so you've got to be careful how you handle that Sunday, Monday on the back end. Now for the Olympic sports, it's a different story. But in football, it's not as big an issue as maybe what it gets talked about."
If there is any anxiety about conference realignment
"The good thing about it is I've got a lot of worries, a lot of concerns but conference realignments is way down the list for me. Now, the guys that spoke first, it's probably a different story. Right? But for us, it's, you know, those decisions are not getting made by football coaches. Those decisions are getting made at a much higher level. I'll say repeat what I said in my opening statement. I'm really excited about the direction of the Big 12 conference. I think some things over the last few weeks have created a great opportunity for our league. From a West Virginia perspective, we've played in multiple leagues over the last 50 to 75 years we've even had been an independent the one constant is is the West Virginia football has always been successful and always figured out a way to make it work. And so from a long-term perspective, I have great faith that West Virginia football is going to be just fine. In the short term, I like the direction and I think we have some unique opportunities. I think the leadership of our conference has made some really good decisions with the additions and I have a strong belief that they will continue to do so."
Secondary
"So, when we looked at what we had returning in our secondary, we like the youth that we have. We've got some guys that can really run that are in their first or second year within our program. The one thing that we were intentional about trying to improve defensively, is we've been a primary zone coverage team over the last two years and we've had success, it's been successful for us. But we haven't been able to create as much havoc upfront, you know, because when you play zone coverage, you you only can run four or five guys at one time. And we wanted to get faster, more athletic in the backend so we could play more coverage. So we could rush six, and maybe you have seven sometimes. So there are additions and we've had several, you know Wesley McCormick, who was a multiple year starter at James Madison at corner. Really like his ability. We think he's got an opportunity to compete for a starting job. Jalen Shelton has versatility that can play safety or corner they can really run. Jasir Cox comes from North Dakota State multiple national champion, multiple year starter that gives us some flexibility to play both outside linebacker positions and our nickel position. We added Rashad Ajayi from Colorado State who started 35 games at Colorado State. Marcis Floyd from Murray State who was there with us in the spring. And so when we were looking at that we wanted to be more athletic. We want to guys that had experience starting and they all have experience starting outside of Jalen, we were extremely excited about his athleticism. But we also want to guys had versatility and when checked themselves at the door. And I've been really pleased with those guys so far. And I think that that our secondary is going to be a real positive surprise to maybe some people that are in this room."
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