2024-04-23 13:23:00
West Virginia head coach Neal Brown felt his football program needed to be rebuilt.
After a disappointing 5-7 campaign in 2022 where Brown believed his team underachieved in virtually every area on the field, the head coach felt it was best to make changes.
Many things were done off the field, but the focus was clear. If West Virginia was going to be successful on the field, they had to become a team that followed several strict guidelines. The Mountaineers would be disciplined, play with maximum effort and toughness, and be smart.
“All those qualities require absolutely no talent,” Brown said.
It sounds easy enough on the outside, but the process of getting there required an investment in all areas of the program. It started with changing things in the winter program that will carry all the way through the summer into fall camp and eventually the season.
The goal was to cultivate an identity and that played out on the field this past season as the Mountaineers were a much more physical football team en route to a 9-4 record, the best mark since Brown took over the program. It wasn’t by accident, as West Virginia was intentional with tackling and physical in practice until it eventually spilled over into the games.
“A total overhaul of how we learned tackling, how we worked it. It’s a year-round approach, even back in the winter, how Mike (Joseph) and strength and conditioning worked angles and lag,” Brown said.
It plays into the physical toughness that Brown is trying to instill, and the Mountaineers also worked on other areas, such as hitting with their hands on hitting pads and with grip practice.
It is far from a finished product and the coaches understand that but things are still improving.
“We are busy with that identity of where we need to be. I’m happy with where we are at 16 months into it, but we haven’t arrived yet,” Brown said.
But that reset also extends into the future of the program.
West Virginia has also made adjustments to how they recruit and the sixth-year head coach admitted it’s easier without the narrative the program was regarding a year ago hanging over their heads. The program hasn’t been afraid to play freshmen, which has helped attract prospects in an era where they want to get on the field as quickly as possible given the rise of the transfer portal.
And with how accelerated things have become, Brown has also placed a greater emphasis on getting players in the current and future classes to campus to take in spring practice.
This is important because it offers something that a typical recruiting visit cannot in many ways.
“They see what the depth looks like, they see the schemes we run. They see the coach-to-player interactions, the player-to-player interactions and that’s critical. They get a feel for what the environment is like at practice, and we really pushed guys to come,” he said.
West Virginia has emphasized adjustment and while the long-term results are not yet known, there is no denying that things appear to be a long way from where the program was.
1713882642
#West #Virginia #recovers #invests #program #identity
