WVSports – Where has West Virginia football recruited under Brown?

West Virginia head coach Neal Brown took over the program in January of 2019 but where have the Mountaineers been recruiting during that time?

Considering most of the class was put together in 2019 when Brown took the job, we’ll look at how recruiting has unfolded from the 2020-23 classes.

Brown made it clear that the Mountaineers will be recruiting within a six-hour radius for the bulk of their classes and that obviously includes an emphasis on in-state targets.

But given the low numbers of players coming out of West Virginia that makes mining those secondary areas even more important. Those areas include places that the coaching staff has recruited well in the past on top of southern states such as Florida, Alabama and other places that have been kind to the program in the past.

“We’ve got to be in a lot of different areas as far as secondary,” Brown said.

But how have the numbers turned out?

The Mountaineers signed 60 players and have 19 committed not including transfers since the class of 2020 and let’s take a look at the breakdown from each area.

In terms of those states within that traditional footprint and six-hour radius the Mountaineers have landed nine from Ohio, nine from Pennsylvania, five from within the state, four from Maryland, three from Kentucky, two from New Jersey and one from Virginia.

That is 32 of the 79 players coming from within that region.

The draw to the Big 12 is that is presents a different opportunity for players that want to leave the region to play in a different league.

“We are able to offer some things to east coast kids whether it’s guys that are in our immediate geographic fit whether it’s Philadelphia, the DMV, Pittsburgh, Columbus and even into New Jersey,” Brown said.

From the secondary options, that has been thirteen from Florida, eight from Georgia, four from Alabama, three from North Carolina, two from Mississippi, two from Michigan, two from Texas, one from Illinois, one from Massachusetts, one from Indiana and one from Missouri.

The Mountaineers also have one from Arizona. Again that is 41 of the 79 players.

The remaining seven have come from the international ranks with one each from Canada, Australia, Sweden, Finland, Germany and The Netherlands.

So to date, Brown is keeping to his plan of pulling the most players out of those regions closest to them as they continue to forge relationships while also pulling players out of talent rich regions which have been good to the program in the south.

This is continuing to evolve as well as states like Michigan are becoming more prominent in the 2023 class and beyond so it will be interesting to see how those secondary areas continue to evolve over time.

One thing that’s clear is given the unique location of West Virginia compared to so many of the schools they recruit against it presents some interesting opportunities for players looking at a chance to step outside the norm.

“We can offer them an opportunity to play in the Big 12. The Big 12 is a unique league and there are some things in that that is clearly defining,” he said.