🏈 Home-and-home with WVU Announcement - @WVU 2026 & @Alabama 2027

[TerryP]

I couldn't care less what WVU did in the past. Neal Brown is legit and he will have them competing for Big 12 titles. Period.

Oh good lord, Josh. How many times have I heard that description for a guy moving up the ladder in collegiate football? Success in the Sun Belt doesn't mean a thing when a guy moves up to Big 12 play. There are far, far more stories of failure than success. And, we're talking about WVU here. It's not a "period. " At best, it's he might have them competing for Big 12 titles. He'll never have the talent level of the main guys in that conference. They simply don't have that footprint or tradition to do so.

I suspect a lot of the love seen towards Brown comes from the point he's been coaching at Troy: an in state school. His time at TTU was for a team a little over .500, around .333 in conference play. And how bad has the Big12 been? TTU didn't finish higher than 5th in their division before the Big 12 decided to get rid of divisions within the conference. He certainly did a good job at Kentucky.

He may end up being one of the few. Neither of us know that for certain. His track record at this level of play doesn't demonstrate an offense capable of competing with your OU's or UT's. Or, for that matter your Okie State teams. Better than TCU's offensive production? Hasn't been proven yet. Baylor? Seems about on par for what should be expected...maybe a little better.

 

[TerryP]

This isn't basketball.

Whew. I was getting confused on the subject there for a minute.

We're not talking about basketball. Check.

Duke isn't a good non conference opponent. Period.

We're looking at around 130 FBS teams to choose from and we're lucky we got one who has a decent coach. In that light, I'd put them in the top third of OOC teams.

But, fact of the matter is this. Bama hasn't played a good OOC team in the last decade. A decent one, or two, but no where near the quantifier as "a good OOC opponent." Off the top of my head I'd put the scoring margin at a hair over four touchdowns the last five years.

 

[JoshB]

Oh good lord, Josh. How many times have I heard that description for a guy moving up the ladder in collegiate football? Success in the Sun Belt doesn't mean a thing when a guy moves up to Big 12 play. There are far, far more stories of failure than success. And, we're talking about WVU here. It's not a "period. " At best, it's he might have them competing for Big 12 titles. He'll never have the talent level of the main guys in that conference. They simply don't have that footprint or tradition to do so.

I suspect a lot of the love seen towards Brown comes from the point he's been coaching at Troy: an in state school. His time at TTU was for a team a little over .500, around .333 in conference play. And how bad has the Big12 been? TTU didn't finish higher than 5th in their division before the Big 12 decided to get rid of divisions within the conference. He certainly did a good job at Kentucky.

He may end up being one of the few. Neither of us know that for certain. His track record at this level of play doesn't demonstrate an offense capable of competing with your OU's or UT's. Or, for that matter your Okie State teams. Better than TCU's offensive production? Hasn't been proven yet. Baylor? Seems about on par for what should be expected...maybe a little better.

Sure Terry, your argument against why he won't do well is so fair isn't it? Some how him being an offensive coordinator on a team that was putting up like 40 points per game but a defense that was bottom of the barrel really, really shows how poorly he's going to do at West Virginia, where he will be HEAD COACH. Its not like we have any sample size of him being a head coach and how HE treats the defensive side of the ball and its not like his teams were top defenses in the Sun Belt and routinely went to places like Clemson, LSU and Nebraska and smacked around those offenses or anything, right? You're totally coming at this thing objectively...

 

[TerryP]

You're totally coming at this thing objectively...

No. I'm pessimistic to a large degree.

The track record of coaches from the Sun Belt moving up to P5 schools isn't a bragging point. It's not something to point towards as an indicator of success at the next level. In a sense, we're talking about a conference that's a step below that of the former Big East. Where are the success stories found there? In a conference I'd consider better quality than the SBC? We've got one in UCF who is broadly criticized for the weakness of their schedules.

What I'm seeing is another Chan Gailey or another Paul Johnson. Heck, is he on par with Willie Taggart?

 

[JoshB]

No. I'm pessimistic to a large degree.

The track record of coaches from the Sun Belt moving up to P5 schools isn't a bragging point. It's not something to point towards as an indicator of success at the next level. In a sense, we're talking about a conference that's a step below that of the former Big East. Where's the success stories found there? In a conference I'd consider better quality than the SBC? We've got one in UCF who is broadly criticized for the weakness of their schedules.

What I'm seeing is another Chan Gailey or another Paul Johnson. Heck, is he on par with Willie Taggart?

Except you have not one single piece of evidence to back up your pessimistic claim. You even point to UCF and how they were criticized for their weak schedule. Neal Brown is responsible for taking Troy into Nebraska and kicking their ass. Going into Baton Rouge and kicking their ass and being one blown non fumble call from the referee's away from beating Clemson (the year we saw Bama-Clemson the first time), too. You keep trying to link these past coaches to a current coach who has absolutely nothing to do with anyone else. You even tried to point to him being a VERY successful OC elsewhere to how poor the team did as a whole, completely ignoring the hideous defenses those teams put on the field. It's more than pessimism, you're purposely ignoring several factors to try and back up your argument that Duke is no worse of an OOC opponent than WVU. And I think its just because you've picked this hill of "Alabama just cant schedule OOC opponents" (and yes I saw you mock me earlier with that sarcastic comment despite that not being what I said) because "its too hard." You even claimed that other teams like Penn State, Michigan, USC, etc. as being just as a "weak" as Duke hilariously. I just do not agree to any of that.

 

[TerryP]

Except you have not one single piece of evidence to back up your pessimistic claim.

The offenses he coordinated in prior stops versus the offenses he's going to be competing against in the Big 12. He's 0-2 when it comes to running an offense in Power 5 competition. That's not a single pieces, it's two series of examples.

The transition witnessed in the past with coaches moving from non-P5 schools to P5 programs.

Now we have two series of example, followed by a historical track record. And I'm lacking a reason to be pessimistic?

Your statement about competing for titles, period, is the catching point here, Josh. Holgorsen, who unlike Brown actually had success to point to in his OC stops at TTU, Okie State, and Houston couldn't get WVU in the title. His closest season was in 2016—the only double digit wins season in his tenure—where a 7-2 record was good enough to tie for second, but they finished third. That was good enough for a top 20 finish in a season where more than half of the conference had losing records in conference play.

I'm left with a coach taking the WVU job with a better resume than Brown and didn't have the success you're saying Brown will have, "period." What's to back that up, Josh? All I'm seeing is his record at Troy. And there we find ourselves right back where we started.

 

[252BAMA]

No. They don't. The away game in 2010 was the other half of the agreement for when Duke played Bama at home in 2006. There have been four meetings: Tuscaloosa, Durham, Birmingham, and New Orleans in the Sugar (only loss for Bama in 1945? I'm fairly sure it was '45.)

'45 Sugar Bowl loss to Duke was the second loss for the '44 team which went 5-2-2. '45 Bama team was undefeated and finished second to undefeated Army in the 1945 Final AP Poll.

 

[252BAMA]

Why do we keep giving the first game away? Texas, ND and now WV.

Good question, and something Bama has done very rarely in the past. Rest assured one or more of those schools will buy out of the return game and will not play Bama at BD.

 

[UAgrad93]

Neal Brown is responsible for taking Troy into Nebraska and kicking their ass.

Don’t get too carried away Josh. That wasn’t a Tom Osbourne or even a Frank Solich coached Nebraska. Nebraska has been much like the Alabama of the Mike Shula era. Would you be pumping up the coach that was at Nortern Illinois that came to Tuscaloosa and kicked BAMA’s ass when Shula was HC?

 

[JoshB]

Don’t get too carried away Josh. That wasn’t a Tom Osbourne or even a Frank Solich coached Nebraska. Nebraska has been much like the Alabama of the Mike Shula era. Would you be pumping up the coach that was at Nortern Illinois that came to Tuscaloosa and kicked BAMA’s ass when Shula was HC?

You conveniently left out those other two teams...

 

[UAgrad93]

You conveniently left out those other two teams...

You conveniently dumped Nebraska into the same category? See how that works?

 

[TerryP]

Would you be pumping up the coach that was at Nortern Illinois that came to Tuscaloosa and kicked BAMA’s ass when Shula was HC?

With LSU's loss to Troy it's more like ULM during Saban's tenure. But that's not a good example, Todd Berry was fired from ULM about three years ago.

You conveniently left out those other two teams...

If we're going to base our projections on how he did against teams like Nebraska, it's fair we're also judging him on the loss to a .500 Liberty team, right? A win over a four win Nebraska team doesn't mean a great deal to me. Evidently, it doesn't move the needle for others as well.

One more thing I can't move past: out of the 21 wins he's had at Troy roughly 75% of them have been against teams with losing records. Eight of the ten wins last year were against teams with losing records. The only exception being Buffalo and Georgia Southern.