Neal Brown Gives 800-Word Response to Heightened Outside Negativity/Pressure

The Mountaineer head football coach goes in-depth on handling the disappointing start to the 2024 season.

West Virginia University head coach Neal Brown. / Christopher Hall

There is a ton of negativity surrounding the West Virginia football program right now, and rightfully so. The Mountaineers have underperformed this season and, really, have failed to truly turn the corner in Neal Brown's six years as the head coach.

With this fanbase, there is no running from the scrutiny.

It won't go away or even simmer down until the program starts producing better results and on a consistent basis. The Mountaineers fell flat on their face in their three opportunities on the big stage this season, and you could say it was four if you include the Backyard Brawl.

Brown's comments in a Monday press conference following the loss to Iowa State did not sit well at all with the fans and certainly became the running joke in the national media for the better part of a week. The negativity and pressure heightened after a blowout loss to Kansas State last Saturday, dropping WVU to 3-4 on the season. No, the fans are not having any fun, and they've made it very clear.

During his weekly radio show on Thursday night with WVU play-by-play man Tony Caridi, Neal Brown spent roughly 15 minutes talking about the outside noise and how he, the players, and coaches have to handle it and not take it personal.

"You want to coach and you want to play at a place where it matters. Just like Joe (Mazzulla) said nobody outside puts more pressure on you than the team - the players, the coaches. You want to do well. You're sacrificing a ton of time and energy into doing this. When it doesn't go right, man, it hurts. It's almost like a mourning process. You lose a game on Saturday and it's not the same, I'm just saying it's similar, it's like a death. You go through this Sunday, Monday, you're mourning and you feel sorry for yourself and you're really down and then you kind of turn the page. For me, it's after the press conference. I wash it away with that one and then you get excited about the next one and that's the build-up to the game on Saturday.

"But for me, the criticism...like, we've lost two games and we played really poorly in the second half and the Iowa State game was kind of laid out and we just didn't deliver. So that criticism was fair. Fans want to win, and they should. That's fair. I never take it personal. Most of the people being negative, I don't know them and they don't know me. They're upset at West Virginia football. They're upset at the head coach, but they don't really know me, and so I don't take it personal. They're upset at the product and that's fair. They're a constituent. They are people that pay for tickets. They're the people that give money. They are people that have graduated from the university. They're a shareholder. If you're a shareholder in a company and a company is not financially making money or paying dividends or whatever it is, then you have a right to be upset and complain. I get that. It's not personal.

"For me, what I've got to do with our staff and do with our players is be able to kind of lock that out and explain that to them that it's normal. I can turn off social media. I'm in a bubble, basically. Dax had a flag football game on Monday, so I was out in public for an hour then, and I'm out in public here for two hours, and that's about it. I can be in my bubble, I'm not on social media. But our players, they don't have that. They've got to be, that's how they communicate. So I think you can't be ignorant and try to ignore that with them. You have to attack it and just say, hey, everybody's got ownership on it and you chose to be a part of this. There's some really good that goes with it and there's some things that are really hard and you're going to be better because of it. Now, let's go out and just do our job better. We don't have an apathy problem here.

"It's a privilege to coach and it's a privilege to play at a place where it matters. There's expectations and you want to go out and do your very best because internally that's what you want your makeup to be. But for me as a coach, and I even said this last week when we were dealing with that craziness with the press conference deal, but like there's a different kind of pressure here because you know you're a hope provider for an entire state. There's a certain level of pressure that goes along with that. You want to do well for the state. You want to be productive for the state. You want to get positive notoriety for the state and that's a little bit different than some other places. This job is different. When things are going well, it's really good, and when things aren't going well, you're going to hear about it. To me, that's fair and you just got to be able to handle those things.

"And I always think about this, too; we're dealing with football here, Tony. And I think Joe (Mazzulla) even said this in his comments, like, if you're a cardiologist...I can imagine that's pressure. You twitch the wrong way and that's it. If you're in the armed forces...that's real pressure. You're dealing with life and death. Like, this is football, man. It matters. It matters, but there's a lot of other people dealing with a lot harder things than what we're dealing with.

"And I should have said this too when I was talking about the state but you want to do exceedingly well because you're indebted to the people that came before you too. Like, this is a program that's really proud. Two undefeated teams back when Coach Nehlen was here and the conference championships...you're indebted to those people before you so you really want to do well for those too."

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