West Virginia head coach Neal Brown was fired on Sunday, one year after a breakthrough 2023 season in which he led the Mountaineers from last place in the preseason Big 12 poll to a 9-4 finish. Brown, who gained national notoriety thanks to a successful run at Troy, lost four of his last seven games, all by double-digits, with three of those defeats coming in Morgantown. He went 37-35 in six seasons and got West Virginia bowl eligible this year, but university brass was more than ready to make a change.
Brown had become known as one of the more thoughtful voices among FBS head coaches, but the sense you often got from former West Virginia players was that he wasn’t a great fit with the program’s DNA. He was very different from predecessor Dana Holgorsen, a fact which appealed to administrators at the time of the hire, but to some degree the edge to Holgorsen’s approach more closely matched the flavor of the program, much like Rich Rodriguez did when the program was really rolling.
Holgorsen and Rodriguez ran different innovative offenses, but their leadership styles fit the vibe around Morgantown on a raucous Saturday. West Virginia had lost some of that energy in recent years. Mountaineer football has long nurtured a rugged underdog mentality, and fairly or unfairly, folks around the program didn’t think they still had that under Brown. Late this season, they were presented with their opportunity to move on from him.
Now, the question is who can bring that back to WVU in the Big 12? This program has always thrived on local talent mixed in with recruits from Florida, New Jersey, the DMV area and Ohio. This search could get very interesting thanks to a couple of West Virginians who figure to get consideration and could have strong support from some key folks.
The most intriguing — and perhaps most polarizing — name in this search is Rich Rodriguez, currently the head coach at Jacksonville State. Rodriguez is a proud son of West Virginia who played defensive back at WVU and later turned the Mountaineers into a contender with one of the best offenses in college football as head coach from 2001 to ’07. He crushed it on the booster circuit, and in his last three seasons in Morgantown, the Mountaineers posted three top-10 finishes and went 32-5.
His departure for Michigan sparked a nasty feud that spiraled into a messy legal battle, but big WVU booster Ken Kendrick has remained in his corner. A lot of the money people there still love the guy. It also doesn’t hurt that the biggest voice in sports media right now, former West Virginia and Indianapolis Colts punter Pat McAfee, is a big believer in Rich Rod and knows how he runs things, having played for him for three years.
Rodriguez has always been a brilliant offensive coach, and he has always proudly called his programs hard-edged. At a time when some coaches may be reassessing how demanding they can be with their players, Rodriguez has not worried about guys jumping into the portal because things were getting tough. Unsurprisingly, the 61-year-old has done a superb job at Jacksonville State, going 26-10 and 18-3 in league play. Jacksonville State will play for the Conference USA title at home against Western Kentucky on Friday. The Gamecocks lead the country in rushing plays of 10-plus yards with 102 and are eighth in the country in red zone touchdown percentage (75.6).
Three other successful Group of 5 head coaches playing in conference title games this week are expected to get consideration for this job.
UNLV’s Barry Odom has done an amazing job turning around the Rebels in two years. He has made shrewd hires, giving opportunities to two young coordinators in OC Brennan Marion and DC Mike Scherer, and both have produced outstanding results in Vegas. Odom is 19-7 overall at a place that hadn’t won more than eight games in a season in 40 years, and the 10-2 Rebels are playing for the Mountain West title Friday night. His teams have been forced to turn to backup QBs for long stretches of both seasons and have not missed a beat. Odom, 48, went 25-25 at Missouri, his alma mater, and clearly has learned a lot since then. The Oklahoma native also knows the Big 12 footprint well.
Army coach Jeff Monken has done a remarkable job turning around the football program at West Point. Army had one winning season from 1997 until Monken’s hiring from Georgia Southern in 2014, a 7-6 campaign in 2010. Since then, they’ve won at least eight games six times and are 10-1 this year. The 57-year-old would be an interesting hire in that he has led Army to eye-popping success despite not being able to utilize the transfer portal or the name, image and likeness market. Monken’s offense could be a major pain in the butt for Big 12 defenses, but do the Mountaineers want to go all-in on a coach making the move from service academy football? It’s a question many Power 4 athletic directors probably have pondered in recent years only to back away.
Ohio coach Tim Albin, another Oklahoma native, spent over a decade as the Bobcats’ offensive coordinator before taking over for Frank Solich. After a 3-9 debut season in 2021, Albin has things rolling, posting consecutive 10-win seasons and leading the Bobcats to a 9-3 regular season and a spot in the MAC title game. His time recruiting in Ohio and throughout the region would make some sense if West Virginia were to widen its search.
One Power 4 coordinator to keep an eye on is Penn State offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki. It’s been a strong first season for Kotelnicki in Happy Valley. Penn State leads the Big Ten in yards per play at 6.80 and will play for a Big Ten title this weekend. It marks the third year in a row Kotelnicki’s offense has led its conference in yards per play. The Nittany Lions have gone from No. 54 in the FBS in third-down offense to No. 14.
At Kansas, Kotelnicki’s offenses led the Big 12 in yards per play in 2022 and ’23, giving the Mountaineers fits. The Jayhawks beat West Virginia 55-42 two years ago, and this season the Nittany Lions came to Morgantown and averaged 7.62 yards per play (the most anyone had against WVU this season) in a 34-12 Week 1 romp. The 43-year-old from Minnesota has an easy-going, affable personality that probably would play very well around Morgantown. Expect him to get a close look.
Another Penn State assistant who might be in play is Nittany Lions assistant head coach/co-OC Ja’Juan Seider. A former West Virginia quarterback who got his start in college coaching at WVU before returning there as the running backs coach on Dana Holgorsen’s staff for four seasons, Seider is a well-regarded coach with deep ties around Florida, which has frequently been a key recruiting area for the program. Players really respond to him, and Seider knows from all his time in Morgantown what really works for the Mountaineers. He also has some former players and money people pushing for him to get in the mix.
The biggest potential wild card in the search could be Jimbo Fisher. He was fired about a year ago from Texas A&M, taking home a buyout north of $75 million. Like Rodriguez, Fisher is a native son with deep ties in the state. He grew up about an hour from Morgantown. He has always had a strong reputation as a recruiter and led Florida State to a BCS national championship before the program really backslid in his final years in Tallahassee. He had one excellent season at Texas A&M, going 9-1 in 2020, but fizzled out from there. West Virginia doesn’t have anywhere close to the resources of Fisher’s last two stops, but depending on how hungry he is at this point, he might be intriguing for the Mountaineers to at least check in on.
(Photo of Rich Rodriguez: Jonathan Bachman / Getty Images)
