West Virginia Director of Athletics Wren Baker addressed how he will evaluate head football coach Neal Brown’s future as well as what his thought are on future football scheduling for the Mountaineers.
Brown is entering year five with the program at WVU, and Baker said it is not all wins and losses that will determine if he continues to stay on.
“I have never once talked about expectations in terms of a win total,” Baker said on the 3 Guys Before the Game Podcast. “I just think there’s too much that can be influenced by that. You can hit that win total and not feel good about where the program is. You can miss it by one or two [wins] and feel like that was because of a catastrophic or a set of injuries and really that the coaching staff did a great job.
“I think for me I want to look at are we doing things the right way, are we recruiting and retaining players, do we play football that is disciplined football, and do we feel like the momentum is there for us to continue to build.”
Baker did recognize the importance of winning, and how he does know wins matter for Brown.
“We know that wins matter,” Baker said. “I’ve been pretty clear that we know we got to win more games. Coach Brown knows that, he’s not hid from that.”
Another part of winning football games is playing a schedule that is conducive to winning. West Virginia played 11 of their 12 games against power five opponents last season and they will do so again this year, including a trip to Penn State.
In Brown’s four seasons, West Virginia has played three full non-conference schedules. In those three years, WVU has played two power five opponents in the non-conference every season.
“Almost every program that has ascended from whether it’s back of the pack or middle of the pack to the upper echelon has done so with being very careful with picking and choosing the games that they schedule that allow them to have some success and build some momentum, but are also challenging at times,” Baker said
Baker added he recognizes the strength of the Big 12 and how scheduling harder games early in the season, can hurt a team and their ability to stack more wins.
“When you’re in a league as good as the Big 12 from top to bottom and you have nine conference games, I think you have to have a group of five opponent in those three noon-conference opportunities,” Baker said. “I would probably do a power five, a group of five and or another group of five or FCS.
“In my mind having the two power five non-conference opponents, coupled with the nine conference games, it makes it very, very difficult. And if I could change that in one magic wand wave, I would.”
