(Football News – Photo Illustration/MetroCreative)
The 2024 West Virginia football season began with great energy and high expectations after an outstanding 9-4 record in 2023. Coming off an embarrassing performance at Texas Tech on Saturday, the Mountaineers simply went through the motions and played for 52 points with little effort. -15 routs.
With a chance to get back to a winning season and a head coach and staff fighting to keep their jobs, it wasn’t in good shape. Within 24 hours, head coach Neil Brown was fired, ending a disappointing 6-6 season. The wins came against FCS opponents and five teams with losing records, but against better-than-average teams, WVU took a 10-point lead late on a Pittsburgh run and lost five games remaining. They lost by an astounding margin of 112 points. Therefore, rather than having a win/loss record, it was that they were unable to compete even against high-quality opponents. For the four home games, fans headed to the parking lot long before the game ended.
Brown was a good man, well-liked, and conducted himself with integrity as a leader of the football program. But with an overall record of 37-35 and just two winning seasons in his six-year tenure, it was clear that change was in the best interest of everyone involved. Coaching at this level is very well paid, but it can be a difficult commitment for many on a personal and professional level. It’s hard to win.
WVU will soon hire a new leader for its football program, but he will face major challenges in the new era of recruiting, the NIL and the transfer portal. It will be an interesting transition, but one that will require patience.
Mountaineer sports fans, at least, were thrilled to see their basketball team win two of three games against a strong opponent in a tournament in the Bahamas. That included upset wins over No. 3 Gonzaga and Arizona. All three games went to OT.
A quick check revealed that about 6% of college basketball games go into overtime. This means the odds of having three consecutive OT games are more than 4,000 to 1. Perhaps this is a pointless anecdote, but after 37 games, what more is there to say about point differential in football?
On the football side, the Mountaineers will play in a second-tier bowl game, which will be a relatively pointless exercise. With the transfer portal for WVU players opening soon, it will be interesting to see how many skeleton teams remain in the competition.
