West Virginia football coach Neal Brown emerges as intriguing option for Auburn job
By John Buhler
West Virginia football coach Neal Brown is the surprise Auburn head-coaching candidate nobody is talking about.
After two years leading the West Virginia football team, head coach Neal Brown could venture back to the Yellowhammer State to possibly be the answered prayers to many confused Auburn football fans.
Steven Godfrey of Banner Society reports the West Virginia Mountaineers head coach is indeed a candidate to replace Gus Malzahn down on The Plains. Though Brown is only 10-11 in two years leading WVU, he had tremendous success previously leading the Troy Trojans in the Sun Belt. Troy won 10 games in back-to-back-to-back seasons before West Virginia hired him in 2019.
The SEC and Alabama connection is very much in Neal Brown’s favor
Though the winning has not been as prevalent at West Virginia as we would have hoped for, there have been moments in the last few years in Morgantown where it is abundantly clear that Brown’s coaching future exists beyond the Big 12’s most remote outpost. Keep in mind that he is holding his own in a conference chock full of elite coaching talents. No wonder Auburn is interested in him.
Brown not only dominated in the Sun Belt, but the Louisville, Kentucky native played the first half of his college career at Kentucky under Hal Mumme, a place where he would return as Mark Stoops’ first offensive coordinator as the main man in Lexington. Brown was a candidate to replace Bobby Petrino at Louisville, but the Kentucky connection was a major red flag for him.
Simply put, this is a wider head-coaching search for Auburn than initially realized. This was not a dump Gus and hire Hugh Freeze maneuver. It still may be interim head coach Kevin Steele’s job to lose, but the fact Brown is a potential candidate this late in the cycle is a testament to how well he is respected in the coaching profession.
It is doubtful Brown leaves West Virginia after two years for Auburn, but stranger things have happened.
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