Spoke with Neal Brown yesterday at the end of the 7-on-7 and will have a lot of stuff coming out including the article on young players and newcomers that stand out but here are some other notes.
--West Virginia is indeed done adding transfers barring some unforeseen situation for this cycle.
--Asked him the most difficult position to recruit in the portal, and it is offensive line. You play more than any other position and there are just fewer quality big bodies out there to sort through. It starts with tackles and then down the line.
--West Virginia will shoot for around 22-24 high school recruits each class and are essentially working off a rough number of 30 additions per class that can shift depending on what else happens on the roster. The bulk of that will be high school options but they'll have six-eight transfers each year which could increase depending on departures.
--Brown is in favor of the changes to the recruiting calendar pushing it up to the start of December and he would also be a proponent of a summer signing date as well if that ever comes to pass. He said that with the changes, the bulk of the class had to be filled by the end of the summer and then they will explore more in-season visits to bring prospects to campus off senior evaluations without the luxury of December visits.
--As a program Brown feels very good about the systems they have in place and all of the support areas with what they're doing offensively, defensively and on special teams. He likes the processes in place from a decision-making standpoint whether that is recruiting, roster management, budgeting and implementing NIL and in-game thought processes. As far as the current team, he really likes the quality of individual in the program right now and is very confident in the culture being built. They have quality leadership and most of it is players that have grown up through the system. From a football standpoint, Brown likes both lines of scrimmages and while they've got to work on the depth he likes where they are at. At linebacker, they have good depth and talent as well as at the offensive skill positions. In terms of what needs to improve, it's special teams with kickoff return and kickoff with getting the ball in the end zone. On defense, they have more talent and depth in the secondary but they've got to figure out the right mix and where those pieces will fit. On offense, West Virginia has to get better on third downs and in the red zone which means being more efficient throwing the football.
--While Brown doesn't like to go back and say what he would do better here or there as he simply tries to learn from things he said if he could do it over he would do things better from a scheduling standpoint such as morning practices, etc. And bigger picture while he couldn't have seen all of the things that occurred with COVID and changes to the rules, he would have made some decisions with the early roster to help the culture even if it would have likely costed them a few wins.
--West Virginia is indeed done adding transfers barring some unforeseen situation for this cycle.
--Asked him the most difficult position to recruit in the portal, and it is offensive line. You play more than any other position and there are just fewer quality big bodies out there to sort through. It starts with tackles and then down the line.
--West Virginia will shoot for around 22-24 high school recruits each class and are essentially working off a rough number of 30 additions per class that can shift depending on what else happens on the roster. The bulk of that will be high school options but they'll have six-eight transfers each year which could increase depending on departures.
--Brown is in favor of the changes to the recruiting calendar pushing it up to the start of December and he would also be a proponent of a summer signing date as well if that ever comes to pass. He said that with the changes, the bulk of the class had to be filled by the end of the summer and then they will explore more in-season visits to bring prospects to campus off senior evaluations without the luxury of December visits.
--As a program Brown feels very good about the systems they have in place and all of the support areas with what they're doing offensively, defensively and on special teams. He likes the processes in place from a decision-making standpoint whether that is recruiting, roster management, budgeting and implementing NIL and in-game thought processes. As far as the current team, he really likes the quality of individual in the program right now and is very confident in the culture being built. They have quality leadership and most of it is players that have grown up through the system. From a football standpoint, Brown likes both lines of scrimmages and while they've got to work on the depth he likes where they are at. At linebacker, they have good depth and talent as well as at the offensive skill positions. In terms of what needs to improve, it's special teams with kickoff return and kickoff with getting the ball in the end zone. On defense, they have more talent and depth in the secondary but they've got to figure out the right mix and where those pieces will fit. On offense, West Virginia has to get better on third downs and in the red zone which means being more efficient throwing the football.
--While Brown doesn't like to go back and say what he would do better here or there as he simply tries to learn from things he said if he could do it over he would do things better from a scheduling standpoint such as morning practices, etc. And bigger picture while he couldn't have seen all of the things that occurred with COVID and changes to the rules, he would have made some decisions with the early roster to help the culture even if it would have likely costed them a few wins.
