West Virginia brand name replacement Neil Brown eager to ‘come home’ – FanSided

At 4-4, how West Virginia’s final four regular-season games go could decide Neil Brown’s fate. Brown has had an up-and-down period at the helm of the Mountaineers. While he looked like he was gone two years ago after his former boss, Shane Lyons, was fired, Brown somehow survived the first year, working for a new athletic director in Ren Baker, who came from North Texas to replace Lyons.

While I’ve written about how Texas A&M offensive coordinator Colin Klein could be a perfect fit for Brown’s replacement, that might be a little premature. Then again, so would the nature of firing Brown at this point, simply to hire the big name there with strong West Virginia connections. Yes, I’m talking about Clarksburg native and former Texas A&M and Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher taking over.

On a recent episode of Couz’s Corner, host Justin “Couz” Walker, who covers West Virginia sports extensively, shared some valuable insight with his YouTube viewers about the WVU coaching situation. He revealed that if West Virginia were to move on from Brown, Fisher would be “strongly interested” in taking over the Mountaineers program. Fisher looks like he’s ready to go home to West Virginia.

Here’s the entire episode of Couz’s Corner discussing Fisher coming to Morgantown.

While West Virginia isn’t dripping in cash, keep in mind that Texas A&M is paying Fisher a fortune…

We are nearly 20 years removed from the last peak of West Virginia football. Rich Rodriguez led the Mountaineers to new heights in the early to mid-2000s with the help of Pat White, Steve Slayton, Owen Schmidt and Pat McAfee. While WVU has had its moments in the two decades since then, conference realignment has hurt the team significantly, moving from the old Big East to the newer Big 12.

That always put WVU behind the eighth ball while serving fellow 2012 Big 12 participant TCU. The Horned Frogs tied, leaving the Mountain West for the Big 12, while West Virginia was at a geographic disadvantage after its previous conference folded. Now that the Big 12 has changed a bit with eight new schools in the past two years, there are no excuses for being so mediocre.

Brown is a good coach, but he could have benefited from winning in a very winnable place before in Troy. Jon Sumrall won there after him, and Larry Blakeney was a legendary presence before him. While I’d argue that Brown is a Power Four head coach, West Virginia needs to split its final four games to become bowl eligible for Baker to have any reason to give him another year on the job.

As for Fisher working in West Virginia, he could. He has shown an ability to recruit at a high level, though that may have more to do with the schools he has worked at. Although the homecoming narrative seems authentic, it could also be fictional. Regardless, West Virginia may need to hit the reset button because things have gotten stale with Brown. Fisher could land elsewhere, too.

If Dave Aranda or Sonny Dykes falter, I think Baylor and TCU will also take a hard look at Fisher…