Why September is a Crucial Month for Neal Brown

Neal Brown isn't necessarily on the hot seat, but a poor start to the season could put him there.

Three years into his tenure at West Virginia and Neal Brown is still searching for answers to get the program back on track. To be fair, the cupboard was fairly bare when he first arrived, and with the transfer portal and NIL becoming a thing early in his time at WVU, it's delayed the progress on the rebuild.

If you look at who has left the program since Brown became the head coach, many of those guys were Dana Holgorsen's recruits. Sure, some may have only played under Brown, but these weren't kids that whom he had built a relationship with throughout their high school careers.

Heading into year four, the expectation is to win. With or without JT Daniels transferring into the program, four years is more than enough time to get things turned around. That's not to say this team should be competing for a Big 12 title but to just show progress by winning seven, or eight games in the regular season. 

The schedule doesn't set up nice and easy for Brown and the Mountaineers as they have to hit the road for two big rivalry games against Pitt to open the season and then Virginia Tech on the 22nd. The two games in between against Kansas and Towson should be wins, but it's what WVU does in those two games in the Backyard Brawl and the Battle for the Black Diamond Trophy that really matters. 

Recruiting purposes aside, getting off to a hot start will do wonders for this team. And to be quite frank, they're going to need to win, at minimum, three games in the month of September to put themselves in a good position to become bowl eligible. Oklahoma should take a step back, but will still be viewed as the crown jewel of the Big 12. Regardless of the coach on either side, the Sooners are undefeated against the Mountaineers as members of the Big 12.

If you remove Kansas from the conversation, and maybe Texas Tech, there aren't many "guaranteed wins" on the docket once conference play begins. Failing to reach a bowl game in year four just can't simply happen. This is not to be harsh on Brown, it's just reality and he knows it. He briefly mentioned back in the spring that "we need to start winning games."

The question is, does athletic director Shane Lyons afford him the time to get things turned around if this season doesn't go as planned and perhaps results in one or two losses to rival schools?

"I think there's a formula to win big here and that's to play great defense," Brown said following a game last October. "I think that fits us. We've got to get more explosive on offense, we've got to continue to make strides on defense and we've got to get deeper on defense. But I think we're developing a standard that we're going to play defense at a high level. There have been people that try to outscore everybody. Not here, I'm just talking about in our league in general. I think that's a tough formula when you're playing the Oklahoma's of the world. We felt like if we could establish great defense, play great special teams, and be really efficient on offense, and recruit some difference makers, that's the formula."

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