Is Neal Brown's Job at West Virginia in Danger? Saturday's Result Could Play a Role

Another home loss could put Neal Brown in a tough spot heading into the final week of the season.

West Virginia University head coach Neal Brown / Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

In just a few hours, the West Virginia Mountaineers will take the field for the final time inside Milan Puskar Stadium this season, hosting UCF on Senior Day.

It's not been the type of season the Mountaineers had hoped for, but they can feel a lot better about things by winning these final two games, winning the bowl game, and finishing with an 8-5 record, which is just one game off of last year's mark.

But let's take this thing one game at a time. There's no guarantee that WVU will even beat UCF, and if they do fall to the Knights this evening, it could spell the end of the Neal Brown era in Morgantown. This is complete speculation, by the way, so don't take that as something concrete.

Losing the game would drop the Mountaineers to 2-5 at home this season, which should never be the case, especially in year six. Getting blown out by Penn State and Kansas State, falling flat on offense against Iowa State, a horrendous defensive performance against Baylor, and then dropping to a UCF team who coming into the game had lost six of its last seven? Yeah, that's not going to end well.

In most cases, waiting until the end of the season to make a change makes the most sense. Again, I'm not saying one will be made, but I think you'll see more coaches be fired after this weekend across the country rather than waiting until next week.

Why?

Well, with signing day moved up, there's not much time to get everything done. The final game of the season for WVU against Texas Tech is on November 30th. Early Signing Day is December 4th. That means you only have a handful of days to hire a search firm, conduct interviews with prospective candidates, follow that up with a second round of interviews, hire a coach, and then that coach has to re-recruit those currently committed to the program.

Some recruits may decide to sign in February, but that won't be the case for all. A handful of WVU commits are still being heavily pursued by other schools, and if they can sign in December and enroll early, that could play a major role in them flipping their choice.

And if we're being completely honest, the result in Texas Tech isn't going to be the deciding factor for Neal Brown. If the Mountaineers lose to UCF and the administration still feels confident in him moving forward, losing to Texas Tech next week isn't going to change their mind. On the flip side, if they know they need to make a move after a loss to UCF, winning at Texas Tech isn't going to save his job.

It sounds like this all boils down to today's result, but that's not necessarily true. There's a lot that goes into this. You have six years of data to look at and project into the future, and of course, there's the financial component of it as well. There's a narrative that WVU doesn't have the money to make a change, and while they are not in the best spot financially, if they feel like a move needs to be made, they'll make one.

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