It’s safe to say that Neal Brown has had his fair share of critics in the media and among the WVU fanbase over the last few years. It’s also safe to say that last season’s much-improved 9-4 record prompted some of those critics to backpedal, if only slightly.
Brown, who has amassed a 31-29 (.517) record during his first five seasons at West Virginia, put an extremely tough and gritty football team on the field in 2023. Picked to finish the 2023 season dead last in the Big Twelve Conference, WVU instead was a top 5 contender in the conference, finishing the season tied for 4th place in the Big 12 and dismantling North Carolina in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl 30-10. The season left the impression that, just maybe, Neal Brown’s “climb” is real.
Sports Illustrated seems to “Trust The Climb”, as evidenced in the recent release of their article, Ranking the Big 12 Head Coaches Worst to First. Neal Brown lands in the 9th spot of those rankings. Keep in mind that the expanded Big 12 now has 16 teams.
In the article they write that “Neal Brown coached his way off the hot seat and into a contract extension. Are the Mountaineers actually climbing or was 2023 an anomaly? I don’t believe it’s the latter. He’s established a strong culture and identity that they can win with in Morgantown.”
We at OhCountryRoads.com would agree with Sports Illustrated on that statement, as well as ranking Neal Brown as a middle-of-the-pack coach in the current Big 12 Conference. However, that doesn’t mean that Coach NB can’t “climb” his way up those rankings, and he has a golden opportunity to do just that in 2024.
The 2024 season opener is the perfect opportunity for Neal Brown and his Mountaineers to get straight to the business of capitalizing on last year’s success. Penn State will be rolling into Morgantown for the first time in over 3 decades, and Morgantown is long overdue for a huge upset victory at home.
Losing to Penn State would unlikely do much harm to WVU’s season, but an upset victory would make everyone begin to believe in Neal Brown’s Mountaineer Climb. One would have to go back to the 1980s in order to remember the feeling of upsetting Penn State at home when the mountaineers did it twice, in 1984 and again in 1988. Penn State dominates the all-time series with West Virginia, 48-6-1.
OhCountryRoads.com is not going as far as predicting an upset, but we are saying that the timing just feels right. If you happen to drive through Morgantown on August 31 and see the warm glow of couch fires, then you will know that Neal Brown’s climb is in full effect.
