Wren Baker Just Laid Out Why He’s Not Worried About the Future of WVU Football

It may feel like West Virginia is in this deep rut that they'll never be able to dig out of in football, but that's not the case. The hardest thing for fans to do is separate the six-year stint of Neal Brown and this underwhelming season, which makes for seven straight years of below-average football. Well, with the exception of 2023, I guess.

Better days are ahead for WVU, and this is not much different from what you typically see in year one of a new staff, particularly nowadays, where you essentially have to build the team from scratch. If you just look around the Big 12, you'll notice the trend of a poor year one followed by a big step in year two.

Recent hires (Since 2020): Year 1 record, Year 2 record

Brent Brennan (Arizona): 4-8, 4-1 (currently)
Kenny Dillingham (Arizona State): 3-9, 11-3
Dave Aranda (Baylor): 2-7, 12-2
Scott Satterfield (Cincinnati): 3-9, 5-7
Deion Sanders (Colorado): 4-8, 9-4
Willie Fritz (Houston): 4-8, 4-1 (currently)
Lance Leipold (Kansas): 2-10, 6-7
Sonny Dykes (TCU): 13-2, 5-7
Joey McGuire (Texas Tech): 8-5, 7-6

The only two coaches who didn't exceed their win total were Dykes and McGuire. We'll just assume Brennan and Fritz will get one more win this season to surpass their year-one total. Dykes hit lightning in a bottle while McGuire had a number of key injuries in year two, including the quarterback spot. Aside from that, the trend shows WVU fans look forward to a huge improvement in 2026.

WVU athletic director Wren Baker shares that opinion and discussed why he feels really good about the future of the football program during an interview on 3 Guys Before the Game.

“One is, I know we have all of the resources lined up and allocated as we move into year two. We had a good, competitive pull of resources this last year, but they missed that entire high school recruiting cycle. And then you look at the portal cycle, and they’re way behind. Even though you’re not supposed to be tampering, by the time a kid goes into the portal, a lot of times they have identified the place they’re going, so you’re behind. And then there’s incredible pressure on what’s left in there. They’re getting bid up. Supply and demand. The supply is getting lower, especially when you get a late start. Then you add in that unregulated period where people were just dumping money at certain institutions into the system. The roster that we have as a good amount of money in it, but we did not deploy every dollar that we had to go and get people who we didn’t think were difference makers. So we have some gas left in the tank of this year’s rev share number, we have the full allotment for next year’s rev share number, and we’re currently working on securing above the cap NIL deals, and when you add those together, I think we will have a highly, highly competitive pool of funds to draw from.

“I think Coach Rodriguez and his staff are doing the things you want a first-year coach to do — to set a culture, to set expectations, to build a foundation. We’re still probably going to be looking for a good number of players more than we would like to this upcoming year, but it won’t be 80 players. And you’ll know and have evaluated the players that you retained and that are in your program. I think we’ll be in much better shape. I understand the frustration, but I feel really good that we are laying a foundation that is going to allow us to build something really special, compete at a high level, and that we have the right people in place to do that.”

Baker is spot on about the transfer portal, but one thing he didn't mention is that when you have to add 80+ players, you're going to 1. Not being able to pursue top-tier talent because you're having to spread those dollars out, and 2. You're naturally going to have a higher miss rate. This time around, they'll have a full high school recruiting class and will know exactly what their needs are when the portal opens.

Recent hires (Since 2020): Year 1 record, Year 2 record

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