WVU football: Brown returning to calling offense in 2023

MORGANTOWN — Neal Brown will get back to calling plays for West Virginia’s offense in 2023.
Brown, entering his fifth season as the Mountaineers’ coach, surrendered those duties to then-offensive coordinator Graham Harrell last fall, but will resume control as WVU attempts to bounce back from a down 2022 season.
“This is going into Year 9 for me as a head coach. One year I didn’t call the plays. The rest of them I did,” Brown said Wednesday after the Mountaineers held their first practice of fall camp.
“Now, [former offensive coordinator] Gerad [Parker] was very involved and called some games at the end of that ’21 season. But for the other seven years as the head coach, I’ve always called it, and I think there’s some real advantages to being able to do that as far as managing the game.”
WVU went 5-7 in 2022 and finished ninth of the 10 teams in the league with 30.6 points per game. The Mountaineers were also ninth in total offense with 399 yards per game — 171.5 rushing and 227.5 passing.
Harrell has moved on to become the offensive coordinator at Purdue, Parker is OC at Notre Dame and Chad Scott was elevated to be WVU’s offensive leader in 2023.
Brown has been pleased with Scott in his position so far, and the coach said he’s tried pushing Scott in his new position. Scott called plays in almost every scrimmage the team had this spring, giving him “a really unique perspective,” Brown said. It’s the first time Scott’s really done that outside of one of the team’s spring games a couple of years ago, according to Brown.
“Sometimes you add responsibilities to people and they get really bogged down, and sometimes you add responsibilities to people and they really flourish,” Brown said. “I think that’s what’s happened with Chad. He’s really flourished. He’s gifted in front of the room. He does a really good job. He’s a guy that consistently has energy, which I think is important, maybe more so dealing with today’s player than ever. He’s got really good energy.
“He’s a great teacher. He uses language that is — what I mean by this from a teaching standpoint, I think the language he uses and the clarity that you use is extremely important, and he’s able to really articulate his points using very few words. He has the ability for his players to be able to give that back, give that information back to him.”
Brown said he has trust in the entire staff, and that he’ll be leaning on Scott, quarterbacks coach Sean Reagan and offensive line coach Matt Moore, as well as new additions to the staff this year with receivers coach Bilal Marshall and tight ends coach Blaine Stewart.
“I think a lot of it, the actual in-game play-calling, sometimes is a little bit overrated,” Brown said. “It’s more about getting your game plan set early in the week and being able to rep those plays and then having answers within the game. I think that’s probably as much.
“Answers within the game a lot of times come from those guys that aren’t necessarily the play-caller, because as the play-caller you’re thinking ahead, and then in between series those guys can really help you because they’re not necessarily focused on the ball as much. They’re looking at other things.”
Brown has extensive experience as an offensive coach. He’s been the leader of WVU’s program since 2019 and was the coach at Troy from 2015-18. He’s also worked as an offensive coordinator at Kentucky, Texas Tech and Troy and as a position coach with several other programs.
WVU also ranked ninth in scoring offense in 2021 with 25.2 points per game. The Mountaineers were eighth in total offense, averaging 371.1 yards in the 6-7 season.
WVU went 6-4 in an abbreviated 2020 season in which it averaged 26.5 points and 412.6 yards, and posted a 5-7 record in 2019 in Brown’s first year in Morgantown. The Mountaineers had the worst offense in the Big 12 that season with 20.6 points and 321.9 yards per game.
Brown went 35-16 during his four seasons as Troy’s coach, with a 3-0 mark in bowl games and a Sun Belt Conference title in 2017. He was the league’s Coach of the Year that season.
“Taking a step back and not doing it last year is not something I necessarily regret because I think it was good for me from a growth standpoint,” Brown said. “It’s been beneficial because it really gave me some time to think about, OK, who do we need to be here for us to be successful offensively? What do my weeks and days look like as a play-caller?
“For me, it just came back to, the most success I’ve had as a head coach is doing it. The only reason I have this job in the first place is because I was a really good offensive coordinator. … That’s kind of all the items that went into it.”
WVU is scheduled to open the season at Penn State on Sept. 2.