Darius Stills Reveals Difference Between Dana Holgorsen & Neal Brown + Future of WVU

Former WVU star discusses his road to WVU and the future of the program.

Fairmont, West Virginia native Darius Stills has accomplished a lot in his young football career but had to overcome a lot of adversity to get to where he is today - the NFL. 

Going back to his high school days at Fairmont Senior, Stills was racking up sacks and tackles for loss on a regular basis, just dominating the man across from him. He took on double teams seemingly every game, but that didn't matter. He wreaked havoc behind the line of scrimmage consistently. Really the only reason many schools didn't pursue him was simply because of his size. At 6'0" 280 lbs, many felt like he wouldn't be as productive at the next level, including the school he ended up at, West Virginia. 

Many folks may not remember that at one time Darius Stills wasn't coming to WVU. He didn't hold an offer from the Mountaineers and the coaching staff at Rutgers showed him a ton of love from the early days of his recruitment. Just two days after committing to Rutgers, Stills got the offer he dreamt of his whole life and it changed everything.

"Yeah, I was committed to Rutgers for like two days and then all of a sudden the [WVU] coaching staff and the football account followed me on Twitter and I was like here we go," Stills said with a laugh. "Coach [Tony] Gibson dm'd me on Twitter and said to shoot him a call and I was kind of debating on it because there were rumors that 'we're going to try and get Darius to get Dante.' I really didn't want to decommit from Rutgers because they wanted me from the jump, but at the end of the day it's about my career and it's about what I want to do. Everything worked out fine but those two days were rough because I wanted to go to Rutgers, but West Virginia is where my heart always wanted me to be."

Once he got to WVU, playing time was sparse. He'd appear in games here and there, but never had a defined role on the defense until his junior year when Neal Brown and his staff arrived in Morgantown. As you could expect, playing for Holgorsen is vastly different than playing for Brown. Stills detailed his experience with both.

"The thing is, I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't really talk to Dana. I never even went into his office. They didn't treat me like I was a scholarship guy. They treated me like they wanted to get my brother. From everybody else's opinion, they liked him because of his coaching style. Like it was football, football, football. Coach Brown is more of a family-oriented coach."

In the two seasons that Stills played for Brown and defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley, he evolved into one of the best interior defensive lineman in the country accounting for 72 tackles, 21.5 tackles for loss, 10.5 sacks, one forced fumble, one blocked kick, and yes, an interception. 

Big man pick!@WVUfootball DL Darius Stills shows off his athleticism with this diving interception.@NavyFederal | #HailWV pic.twitter.com/ldqcUAfiSG

— Stadium (@Stadium) October 19, 2020

Following the conclusion of the 2020 season, Stills was named a consensus All-American, the 13th player to do so in program history joining FB Ira Errett “Rat” Rodgers, DT Bruce Bosely, LB Darryl Talley, OL Brian Jozwiak, C Mike Compton, P Todd Sauerbrun, CB Aaron Beasley, LB Canute Curtis, LB Grant Wiley, C Dan Mozes, and RB Steve Slaton.

Despite having a 17-18 record through three years as the head coach of the Mountaineers, Stills believes that Neal Brown will get things headed in the right direction. 

"Coach Neal and them came in during a hard time, especially with my class and Dante's class being both Dana's recruits. So when he came in, he tried to put the culture that we weren't familiar with on us right away and that was kind of a hard transition. We were so used to a certain culture and then Coach Brown came in and it was a complete 180. It was some good, some that people didn't agree on but at the end of the day, you're not going to agree on everything. Like, that whole 'Trust the Climb', I believe that. The whole climb deal for people who don't know, the mountain is not always straight up. Eventually everything will be right, but it's all about the culture so after Dante, he's like the last of Dana's kids so from there on out all the players are going to only know Neal Brown's culture, so everything is going to fall in line."

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