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West Virginia receivers Crotez Braham (11) and Traylon Ray (18) snare passes during a practice drill.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va — Time is not Neal Brown’s friend as he moves into his fifth season as head coach at West Virginia.
The first four years he asked Mountaineer fans to “Trust the Climb”, which would infer an upward trend, but it hasn’t worked out that way.
It seemed that every elevator he got on was going down, until now, five years into a whirlwind of challenges and controversies from Covid to conference realignment his team is picked to finish last in a bloated Big 12 conference of 14 teams.
The opener at No. 7 Penn State is less than a month away and there literally is no way to envision a road upset before 100,000 fans against an opponent WVU has played 59 times and come away with a victory in just nine of those engagements.
Despite this, Brown has put on what may not be exactly a happy face but at least an optimistic face, despite the talk swirling around the program that this figures to be his final season as coach.
He understands that big progress must be shown not only in the standings but in the projections for the future of his program; that he is caught in a situation that screams out “win now” but that also demands showing signs that it can be carried on beyond this year.
With this in mind, all stops have been pulled out in creating a team with both a present and future, a team that mixes together some solid holdovers from last year’s 5-7 team that somehow found a way to lose a Backyard Brawl meeting with Pitt that it should have won, that lost six other games by a combined 113 points.
In the seven losses, they gave up a staggering 299 points, 42.7 per defeat.
Despite that, he has kept the same defensive coordinator, Jordan Lesley, while debuting his third offensive coordinator in three years.
Brown’s approach to the situation was as aggressive as it could be under the circumstances, digging deeply into the transfer portal while recruiting a freshman class that seems to be better than those of recent years.
Changes, he understood, had to be made right now and he went about making them and will debut a rather interesting group of newcomers in the Penn State game.
There are opportunities galore, from the quarterback spot which now seems to be occupied by the intriguing freestyle game played by Garrett Greene, to receiver, where the top four players exited, to a secondary that was absent for most of last season.
Brown revealed earlier this week that two coveted freshmen wide receivers, Rodney Gallagher III and Traylon Ray will likely see playing time right out of the gate at Penn State.
Added to top transfer Devin Carter, a large, talented go-to wide receiver, he’s hoping the talent transplant will allow an effective passing game. Adding in yet another transfer addition, probably the top one in LSU tight end Kole Taylor, and they may just have enough to complement what should be a dominating run game.
How that passing game will play out against Penn State is uncertain, although Brown readily admits that Gallagher and Ray are part of what is a budding game plan.
“We haven’t started putting our game plan in,” Brown said in this week’s media session. “A lot of it will be determined by what fits versus Penn State. I have in my head kind of loosely gone back to watching them a lot in May and a little last week, but until we put it up on the board and say, ‘OK, this is exactly what we’re going to do,’ and ‘these are the best personnel pieces to do that.’.
“I know they’re going to play. How many snaps, I’m not sure,” Brown went on. This is a long season and our schedule is more intense than most, so as long as they can handle the load from a physical and mental standpoint and emotionally, their playing time will continue to increase as we go.”
Gallagher, at 5-10 and 160, and Ray, at 6-1, 186 have a lot of growing to do and are far from their top physical peak and still caught up in learning a new system — Gallagher even learning a new position.
But they are the future and can help in the present.
“Rodney has to get stronger and knows that. So does Traylon,” Brown said. “They’re going to look drastically different a year from now. Neither one of those guys was an early grad. Traylon even played baseball until the end of June, so he’s only been here since July.”
But when you’ve got it, you’ve got and Brown believes both have a chance to be special.
Carter has impressed since walking onto campus this summer after being a starter at NC State while Taylor has shown special skills in the passing game, something he came to WVU to show off, after being caught mostly in blocking jail at LSU.
More than the catching skills, though, Taylor brings a background of having played in NCAA elite company and competition and immediately took ownership of the tight end group and will offer the view from the top to a team that is tired of looking at its league from near the bottom.
Another area that required instant gratification that leaky secondary and Brown went into the portal for Beanie Bishop of Minnesota, a defensive back and returner who brings an unmatched work ethic that is rubbing off on others, and Anthony Wilson, a hard-hitting transfer from Georgia Southern who has idolized from WVU safety Karl Joseph since he was a kid.
Wilson believes he accomplished all he could on a non-Power 5 stage and now wants to test himself against the best.
“I want the opportunity to showcase my skills on a bigger stage,” he admitted.
There was one other vital need facing Brown entering the off-season and that was a placekicker to replace Casey Legg. He found that, too, in the portal with Michael Hayes, who has left Georgia State to come to WVU and who has done all that has been asked of him in practices.
Brown has continually put Hayes into pressure situations during practice and seen him respond in a positive manner, displaying a leg that can be accurate up to 50 yards out.
A junior, Hayes last year made 11 of 14 field goals and 41 of 42 extra points at Georgia State, where the goalposts have exactly the same dimensions they have in Power 5 football.
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