Neal Brown: 'You Can't Have Top-Four League Expectations and Have Bottom-Four Resources'

The former West Virginia coach explains why the Mountaineers fell short of expectations.

Michael C. Johnson-Imagn Images

Neal Brown made some interesting comments throughout the season that didn't sit well with West Virginia fans, and in his first media appearance since his firing, he seemed to have irked Mountaineer Nation once again.

In a guest appearance on the “MetroNews Talkline” radio show Hoppy Kercheval, Brown talked about how the expectations from the outside didn't meet the resources he and the football program had available to them.

"You can't have top-four league expectations and have bottom-four resources. Wren (Baker) is going to change that. It takes time. That's not something you can overturn. We're resourced in the bottom four in several different categories whether it was salary pool, rev share, NIL...but I think that's all going to change. Institutionally, those things have got to change to get the program where it needs to be on a consistent basis. You can catch lightning in a bottle and be under-resourced. But to do it consistently and the program that this fan base wants, you got to resource it.

"I use a Major League Baseball example. Who's consistently winning? Yankees and the Dodgers are in the World Series, and they consistently spend. That doesn't mean they win every year, but they're in the hunt every single year. And there's a reason why the Pirates aren't there. Teams catch lightning in a bottle...Brewers, etc. But there's a reason those high-resourced teams are always in the hunt."

As much as it upsets Mountaineer fans, he is speaking the truth here. West Virginia does need to up its game in the NIL space if it wants success to be easier to obtain. That said, you can still run a successful program while being under-sourced. It's just harder.

I've heard the frustration all year from West Virginia fans in terms of the results or lack thereof from Brown, but I've also heard the other side of it from those who worked closely with Neal during his tenure in Morgantown. Both things can be true: Resources haven't been the best, and he didn't win enough.

From those I've spoken to inside the football building, the expectation is that West Virginia will be in a much better position moving forward in terms of all of the areas Brown touched on.

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