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What will the expected salary need to be for the next HC?

Current Big 12 Salaries:




























































































Rank (Nat’l) Coach Total Pay Buyout (12/1/23)
1 (14) Mike Gundy (Oklahoma State) $7,625,000 $24,976,563
2 (17) Brent Venables (Oklahoma) $7,100,000 $30,583,333
3 (29) Lance Leipold (Kansas) $5,750,000 $27,346,667
4 (30) Steve Sarkisian (Texas) $5,600,000 $12,926,667
5 (38) Chris Klieman (Kansas State) $4,750,000 $29,625,000
6 (41) Dana Holgorsen (Houston) $4,300,000 $14,838,333
7 (45) Joey McGuire (Texas Tech) $4,104,960 $15,862,063
8 (47) Matt Campbell (Iowa State) $4,005,537 $15,250,000
9 (48) Neal Brown (West Virginia) $4,005,000 $13,033,333
10 (53) Scott Satterfield (Cincinnati) $3,535,000 $19,291,667
11 (57) Dave Aranda (Baylor) $3,021,003
12 (66) Gus Malzahn (UCF) $2,300,000 $3,593,750
Kalani Sitake (BYU)
Sonny Dykes (TCU)



I believe Sonny Dykes is making 7.5 million and Kalani Sitake is making 1.5 million.

What will WVU target price be from the get go and for how many years?

WVSPORTS.COM West Virginia head coach Neal Brown press conference summary

--West Virginia head coach Neal Brown congratulated Coach Don Nehlen for his name being put in the stadium. He is one of the best people he knows and has been great to him.

--Disappointing loss to a good Oklahoma State team. They played well and they're a good team. There is a small margin error in the Big 12, they could be 6-1 but they are 4-3. They've had leads in the fourth quarter the past two weeks and they haven't finished, especially on defense. The biggest stat of the game was 17-0 was points off turnovers. They created two and they turned that into nothing while Oklahoma State had 17. Special teams, the field goal block team continues to be a strong point and affected that kick at the end of the half. They blocked a punt and Ollie Straw bounced back. They are missing too many tackles on defense and kickoff return. Defensively wasn't quite good enough. On the positive side, the defensive line played better but they didn't play well at linebacker or safety. At the spear and spur they didn't do a good job of maintaining leverage and using hands. At safety, they didn't do a good job of fitting the runs and linebackers got too close to the line of scrimmage and missed tackles. They had 16 missed tackles and the run defense wasn't as good as it needed to be. Ollie Gordon is really good and they gave him a lot of air to run in. They had a couple killer penalties, an unsportsmanlike penalty by Lee Kpogba and then Ben Cutter's late hit gave them 30-yards on that one play. That was on a drive that they took the lead. The takeaway from defense is that they have to be better fundamentally. When they've played good defense from the stretch from Pitt-TCU, they played quality defense and they played really good fundamentals. Against Houston in the fourth quarter and Oklahoma State in the fourth quarter they aren't leveraging the football and keeping their edges, and run their feet through contact. They didn't do well in the past two fourth quarters and it's cost them.

--Offensively Garrett Greene continues to play at a high level. Three really costly plays and missed a touchdown when they had to kick a field goal there. And pull when he should have handed the ball off but he ran for over 100 and continued to throw the deep ball. Really good on third down and they are getting their passing game going. They left 17-points out on the field. Kole Taylor and Devin Carter have to play better because they're both really good players.

--Known Gus Malzahn for a really long time but this is the first time they've played against him. They will run the football and play physical defense. It's going to be hot and they don't expect that to be an issue but they need to prepare for that. They are coming off one of their better performances and on special teams they have an Australian punter and can spray the ball everywhere. Their returner #0 is super fast and he's busted a lot of big returners. Townsend is their punt returner and he's been good. They are explosive on offense and want to run the ball, but can hit some explosive pass plays as well. This is one of the best rushing teams in the country. Herb Hand is there and they are creative with it and will use a lot of different motions to get the receivers in the run game. They will use tempo and play fast. Defensively they played their best game against Oklahoma, the defensive line is big long and it's the best corner tandem they have gone against since Penn State. It's about getting better and they have to put themselves in positions to win in the fourth quarter and close out games. West Virginia needs to get down and put a better product out there.

--Really limited and are extremely thin at linebacker at safety and what they have is what they have. Caden Biser is going to play in this game and get him in early and that's about what they have at linebacker. The safeties they have are who is going to play. Raleigh Collins can play a little bit at that spear.

--Oklahoma State is difficult to pressure because they get the ball out fast. Bowman gets the ball out fast because he does the back pedal drop and they got caught in a zero pressure and they hit a huge run. They didn't get enough pressure but they make it hard. Houston they just didn't play well up front.

--UCF is similar with what they do with Plumlee and McClain at quarterback. Plumlee has a lot more experience.

--West Virginia just ran into the returner. When you're playing the jammer you have to peek at the returner on the play against Oklahoma State.
--Lance Dixon was suspended for the Oklahoma State game and his situation is to be determined.

--West Virginia brought them in last night to flush that game and practice to get them past it. The past two games are two of the most unique games that he has been part of as a coach. They were ahead in the fourth against Oklahoma State and the wheels came off defensively. He doesn't think there was a hangover from the Houston game because they overcame that 10-0 start. Credit the guys for getting back into it but they didn't finish it. They need to get back to playing quality football at the same time.

--EJ Horton played the most snaps on the game on Saturday and he'll continue to do that. He has practiced for three weeks in a row and he can really run. He gives them a whole different dimension when he is out there.

--Justin Johnson earned more playing time and got downhill fast and was decisive. Jaheim White has to practice better so they can play him. They have hit some runs, but instead of eight yards it's blocked for a lot more.

--Tomas Rimac will be available, K Michael Hayes will be fine and it's too early to tell on WR Hudson Clement who got rolled up.

--West Virginia hasn't fumbled the ball on offense much but the Kole Taylor fumble was being careless with the ball.

--It's really frustrating for him because a game against a really good team was winnable and they just didn't make the plays down the stretch.

--Teams are muddying it up early and not playing the same things on film that they have against the run game against West Virginia. It's contributed to some slow starts as they have to adjust. It takes some time to see how they're going to play in the run game and they need some answers and counters but they also need to execute better. From a schematic standpoint, what you do in the run game is what you do but what you try to hide is with motions and shifts and mess with who you are reading. They try to be a little bit different each and every week.

The play the made me turn off the game

Was the onside kick. It was doomed by its design and alignment. Why would you put 4-5 guys in motion coming from the top of the field and end up having that entire group trailing your only properly aligned player by 4-5 yards. It was Devin Carter vs 4-5 OkSt players to get to the ball. The kick was actually good and it took a substantial bounce but the trailing players were so far behind the play they were almost out of the frame. Special teams are not that difficult but I feel like coaches get bored with just lining up and playing disciplined football. It's like the coaches have to put a flare on something to make it look more impressive than it is.

WVU Release Six-Day Window to be Exercised for Nov. 4 Game vs. BYU

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (October 23, 2023) – The Big 12 Conference has announced that ESPN and Fox will utilize a six-day window to announce the broadcast network and time slot for WVU's Saturday, Nov. 4 Big 12 Conference home football game against BYU.


The game time and television network, for the BYU game and other Big 12 matchups, will be announced after the games on Oct. 28.

West Virginia travels to Orlando, Florida, this Saturday to face UCF at noon. Tickets are still available for Big 12 Conference home matchups against BYU and Cincinnati at WVUGAME.com.

WVU Release Six-Day Window to be Exercised for Nov. 4 Game vs. BYU

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (October 23, 2023) – The Big 12 Conference has announced that ESPN and Fox will utilize a six-day window to announce the broadcast network and time slot for WVU's Saturday, Nov. 4 Big 12 Conference home football game against BYU.


The game time and television network, for the BYU game and other Big 12 matchups, will be announced after the games on Oct. 28.

West Virginia travels to Orlando, Florida, this Saturday to face UCF at noon. Tickets are still available for Big 12 Conference home matchups against BYU and Cincinnati at WVUGAME.com.

Something has to be done but do we want Gee having this choice

I think Neal's time is done --- I have given him every chance and sometimes it just doesn't work out.... his fault, program fault, school fault -- doesn't matter it just isn't working.

That said --- concerns me highly that Gordon is here to have a say in this. Of course I don't think we have the luxury to wait it out either but someone has to minimize Gordon's role....
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WVSPORTS.COM Observations: West Virginia football vs. Oklahoma State

–For the second straight week, West Virginia did everything in its power to not only refuse to seize momentum but win this football game. And for the second straight week, the Mountaineers have lost a game that they very likely should have won. West Virginia just isn’t good enough to continue to try to win these one possession games without creating any distance between themselves and opponents. I wish I could point to one issue, but over the course of the last five years it’s a number of them that seemingly crop up at the worst possible times. Through five games West Virginia still had some luck on their side but still didn’t do anything to beat themselves. That just hasn’t been the case the past two weeks with inexcusable turnovers, penalties and just mistakes that will lose you football games. Ultimately head coach Neal Brown isn’t the one out there making the miscues, but it ultimately falls at his feet and some of the things that happen to this team are almost impossible to believe at times. Brown is now 26-28 in Morgantown more than halfway through his fifth year and that just isn’t good enough. The program had a great opportunity to really stake their claim among the rest of the Big 12 over the past two weeks but instead fell completely flat and now the Mountaineers have taken a 4-1 start and flipped into a 4-3 season with questions on just where does this team go next?

–I can’t even explain what happened on that punt return. West Virginia was leading 24-20 after getting off the field with a massive third down stop and somehow Andrew Wilson-Lamp laid the biggest hit of the season on his own player in Preston Fox. The ball has always bounced in a funny way in this series in favor of the Cowboys and while Wilson-Lamp looked to be pushed it’s hard to believe that happened. The Mountaineers would give the Cowboys the football and they’d score three plays later to take a 27-24 lead. More times than not when this team has had a chance to seize momentum or put themselves in a favorable position they find a way to let it slip away.

–Even after that West Virginia goes down and ties the game up on a field goal, which the play calling inside the ten on that sequence left a lot to be desired, and did it again. Aided by 30-yards of personal foul penalties on the same play, Oklahoma State takes the ball to the West Virginia 29. The Mountaineers again had a chance to get off the field and while there was likely a clear hold on that play, it wasn’t called and two missed tackles led to a touchdown. Then the offense is stuffed on fourth down at midfield to effectively close things up although there were some fireworks still left.

–It doesn’t matter in the end but credit this team for finding a way to respond after falling behind 10-0 with two bad turnovers to retake the lead at 17-13. Of course, we all know how it ended but I do think that the coaching staff was able to refocus the team and have them in position after the way that the Houston game ended the way that it did.

–West Virginia’s defense was able to keep Oklahoma State in check for large stretches in this game and were able to hold in the red zone, but looking at the final numbers it didn’t seem that way. The Mountaineers allowed 491 yards, 48 points and the Pokes were 8-14 on third down. Of course when you consider 28 points and 171 yards came in the fourth quarter. Missed tackles were a major issue at times in this game and some of that is credit to Ollie Gordon, but other times the Mountaineers simply missed plays where they had opportunities to get ball carriers to the ground. After allowing 40 points over a three game span against FBS teams, the Mountaineers have now allowed 89 points over the last two games. This team isn’t built to win shootouts and it’s shown.

–Ollie Gordon rushed 29 times for 282 yards and 4 touchdowns. That’s more production than the entire West Virginia team on the ground and I don’t think it’s even a stretch to say that Gordon broke more tackles by himself in this game than the Mountaineers entire team both rushing or receiving. That has been a real issue this season as there just isn’t any big play ability with this offense outside of scramble plays by quarterback Garrett Greene where he extends them and throws it. We all understood that the Mountaineers weren’t going to be explosive, but you have to make some defenders miss and that just isn’t happening this season at all. Those 282 yards are the second most since Khalil Herbert put up 291 for Kansas.

–Speaking of which, CJ Donaldson just has not been effective the past six quarters of football. He carried the ball 13 times for 39 yards in this game and there were chances for him to break bigger runs and it just didn’t happen. Donaldson isn’t hitting it as hard as he did last season and simply isn’t breaking any tackles. It was obvious that the coaches saw the same in this one and went to Justin Johnson who carried 14 times for 72 yards and looked noticeably more decisive and quicker. I don’t know the answer right now, but Donaldson has definitely struggled.

–Redshirt junior Garrett Greene was again the best player for West Virginia in this game. He completed 15-30 passes for 249 yards and 2 touchdowns with an interception and then rushed for 117 yards as well. He definitely didn’t play a perfect game but he was the best player for the Mountaineers and without his dual threat ability I wonder where this offense would even be.

–West Virginia finished with 475 offensive yards in this game. It’s the second time against an FBS opponent that the Mountaineers have piled up over 400+ yards and the second consecutive game. But West Virginia has lost both of those contests.

–EJ Horton needs to see the field more. It seems like he moves at a different speed than the rest of the wide receiver room and finished this game with 3 catches for 79 yards and a score. For an offensive lacking explosion, I’d find a way to get him more involved. Credit to Preston Fox as well. He has the ability to get open and is catching the football when it is thrown to him. It’s not the player you want on a go-route on third and 7, but he has proven dependable.

–Overall though, West Virginia has to do a better job getting open and creating separation at the wide receiver spot. It’s been an issue all season and in critical situations it presented itself in this one.

–Next up is a trip to UCF and it’s fair to wonder if West Virginia can’t find a way to win and the season is going to spiral out of their hands. This was a 4-1 football team at the beginning of the month that could leave it 4-4 with four games left if they can’t find a way to get a win on the road. The Knights are 3-4 themselves but are coming off a hard-fought loss to Oklahoma.
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