West Virginia begins search to find next football coach

West Virginia now needs a new head football coach with the firing of Neal Brown.

Brown spent six seasons atop the football program and finished his time with a 37-35 record. The Kentucky native was just 25-28 in Big 12 Conference play and following a 9-4 season a year ago, finished at 6-6.

That disappointing end-of-season mark coupled with the struggles against ranked opponents at 3-17 overall made the decision, albeit costly at $9.7 million, a necessary one.

And that national search is already underway per Athletic Director Wren Baker.

“I am confident that with the strong alignment among the University leadership, our passionate supporters, our proud history, and our willingness to invest, we will have an outstanding pool of candidates,” he wrote.

Baker, who took his position in November of 2022, has already overseen one major coaching change in the basketball program with the transition from head coach Bob Huggins to interim head coach Josh Eilert to the current head coach Darian DeVries.

By the early returns, that has played out quite smoothly for the Mountaineers as DeVries led his team to wins over No. 3 Gonzaga and No. 24 Arizona in his first year to finish third in the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament.

And looking back at what Baker has previously outlined as his criteria when it comes to coaching it seems that some things will have value over others.

During the basketball search, Baker outlined that an understanding of the state and its people was a priority on top of a strong leader who is willing to adapt to the ever-changing college landscape.

The Athletic Director also admitted that during his search to fill the basketball post, a current head coach would receive priority because of the adjustment to learn on the job.

“You really don’t know what comes with that job until you sit in that chair,” he said at the time.

Now that doesn’t rule out assistants by any means, but is at least an interesting point.

It goes without saying that a demonstrated track record of success is going to be critical, preferably at the Division One level, given the challenges of winning at the Power Four level.

And while football is a little different than basketball, you could expect that many of these same things will hold true when it comes to tabbing the 35th head coach in program history.