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Wren Baker is looking at a lot of factors when it comes to the next head football coach at West Virginia.
There are the obvious ones such as the history of success of the potential coach as well as how he could connect with the people in the state of West Virginia. The Mountaineers Athletic Director isn’t eliminating any potential candidates and that includes sitting or former head coaches and coordinators.
When it comes to evaluating them, Baker likes to use a mix of analytics and feel.
On the analytic side, Baker will utilize several programs which outline the offensive efficiency, defensive efficiency and the same on special teams. When looking at head coaches, he wants to look at how their teams are in each of those categories and where they’ve been if they’ve lost coordinators in the past.
“Had they been able to backfill or replace them with equally capable and talented people? Maybe even go back into when they were a coordinator, if they were a coordinator, and what they’ve done,” he said.
That also includes coaches at the group of five or FCS level although again the interview process would be different for them considering that they hadn’t done it at the power four level. That doesn’t mean it disqualifies any of those candidates, but they must be prepared to show how they’d handle the adjustment.
“It does mean when they come to the interview process they probably have to have a very deep detailed and specific plan on how they would address those things that they hadn’t had to address in their current job,” Baker said.
When looking at current coordinator candidates, Baker wants to see if there as been clear progression if they’ve been at multiple stops. But there also is a different interview process since they’ve typically been focused on one side of the ball. That means learning their philosophy on the opposite side as well as what they envision and getting into potential candidates they would have for their coaching staff.
“I think for me data and analytics are very important. They’re not the only thing that’s important but I do think it’s a way to make sure you’re not getting into making decisions based off emotions,” Baker said.
With over 20-years of experience, Baker also has gotten to know a lot of different people in the business ranging from coaches to administrations so once the process gets to a certain point he can find somebody that has worked with the coach or knows them to get different insight.
There’s admittedly a large number of candidates under consideration so this doesn’t come into effect until things get narrowed down, but finding those different viewpoints is essential.
“I recognize the magnitude of it, so you want to make sure you did not leave a stone unturned when you get to that point,” Baker said.
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