News broke Sunday evening that West Virginia had fired head coach Neal Brown, who had been with the program for six seasons.
On Tuesday, WVU athletic director Wren Baker addressed the media about his decision.
“It was a difficult couple of days, a difficult decision,” Baker said. “Coach Brown is a tremendous, tremendous colleague. In many, many ways, everything you would want from a leader.”
Baker went on to discuss Brown’s impact on the program and the foundation he left behind in Morgantown.
“He did a great job helping build the infrastructure of this program. He did a tremendous job just making sure we’re enriching the lives of young people, that there being academically successful. When you look at the 5th Quarter program, the Chambers Climbers program, those are things that he led the development of,” Baker said. “So much respect for him (Brown). The class and integrity he showed, if I was to script out how you’d want a couple of hard days to go, I couldn’t have scripted him to be any better and any classier than he’s been.”
Baker inherited Brown as WVU’s head football coach when he became the university’s athletic director and vice president in December of 2022. Though their time together wasn’t extreme, the two seemed to have built a strong relationship over the past couple of years.
“Just want to say on behalf of everyone here, thank you to him and we’re very appreciative,” Baker said.
Now, Baker is tasked with finding a new leader for the football program who can restore their historical success and possibly take them to new heights.
