In large part, the Neal Brown era hasn't been full of success. This past season, however, showed that the potential for the Mountaineers to return to its winning ways is there.
It marked the first time since Brown took the job in 2019 that he's been able to keep a large portion of his key contributors and actually had a quarterback that could be a game-changer. When Brown arrived in Morgantown, the cupboard was rather bare and it didn't help the cause when other schools would come poaching WVU's roster for the top-tier talent they did have.
Now, it seems like WVU is in a pretty good spot with the NIL opportunities provided with Country Roads Trust, making for a bright future.
CBS Sports' Josh Pate isn't buying it though, at least not yet. During a segment on his show Late Kick with Josh Pate, he tabbed West Virginia as a third tier program in the Big 12 Conference and has them one spot away from being in the bottom tier.
Pate's tiers:
Tier 1: Utah, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech.
Tier 2: TCU, Kansas, UCF.
Tier 3: Arizona, Iowa State, Colorado, West Virginia.
Tier 4: Arizona State, Baylor, BYU, Cincinnati.
"9-4 last year after two losing seasons. They are a classic team versus program argument. So last year's team gives you hope but you got to take into account last three years ... this year will tell the tale ultimately on Neal Brown and the overall direction of the program. Talent's been okay, talent acquisition is okay by Big 12 standards. Mediocre by national standards."
Pate's criteria was to take the last three years of on-field performance, recruiting, and development.
Of course, if you lump in a pair of losing seasons, it's going to hurt West Virginia's case. But as I mentioned before, WVU was in a tough spot and have finally managed to work their way out of it. Anytime you do something like this and you put hard parameters around it, it's going to skew the actual objective. If we are throwing these teams into program tiers, you have to take into account everything that program has done. West Virginia is home to the winningest football program in the Big 12. That's got to count for something, right?
Kansas has one good year and all of a sudden, they are tier two? Texas Tech is a tier one? What have they done that West Virginia hasn't? We can talk recruiting until we're blue in the face, but if it doesn't turn into wins it doesn't matter. And UCF in tier two? Come on, man.
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