West Virginia football will look quite different in 2019 with head coach Neal Brown and quarterback Austin Kendall taking over, so how will they fare?
Since 2011, the West Virginia Mountaineers have been under the watch of Dana Holgorsen. That all changes for West Virginia football in 2019, though, coming off of an 8-4 season and with Holgorsen leaving for the Houston Cougars. Now it’s Neal Brown — formerly of Troy — taking over operations in Morgantown and he’ll have a tall task ahead.
Holgorsen’s departure isn’t the only thing that the Mountaineers will have to deal with in the 2019 season as this is a team that also suffered a ton of losses from last year’s roster. To name a few, Yodny Cajuste, David Sills, Gary Jennings, David Long and Will Grier are all gone from a team that, despite their relatively pedestrian final record, was far more competitive than that.
There’s no question that replacing Grier at quarterback is the question hanging over West Virginia football for the 2019 season. Oklahoma transfer Austin Kendall, who sat behind both Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray in Norman, would seemingly be the favorite to take over the offense. However, former Miami transfer Jack Allison isn’t going to give up the job without a fight.
On the other side of the football, the biggest change won’t be the players on the roster for the Mountaineers but, rather, the schematic shift. Holgorsen famously employed the 3-3-5 defense at the helm of West Virginia football but Brown and his new staff will bring in a more traditional four-man front defensively. So far in spring ball, the switch has gone over well.
Still, with so much turnover and transition for this team, this has the makings of what could potentially be a tumultuous year for the Mountaineers. Will that be the case? Let’s go game-by-game through the 2019 West Virginia schedule and make predictions for each result to ultimately see how things play out in the first year under Brown’s watch.