Neal Brown has signed one full recruiting class during his time at West Virginia.

That has taught him a few things about what it takes to recruit players to Morgantown and how the coaches have to attack that aspect to recruit successfully.

At the top of that list is that at West Virginia is the coaches simply have to cover a lot of ground. Unlike some places, the Mountaineers are forced to dive into those secondary recruiting areas, areas outside that six-hour radius from Morgantown, more frequently.

“We’ve got to be in a lot of different areas as far as secondary,” Brown told WVSports.com.

The other thing that sticks out to Brown?

While it’s important to get players on campus at any school, that is perhaps more significant at West Virginia because of the location and the relatively small geographic footprint that the Mountain State provides.

Many people simply aren’t passing through unless they are from the area or have a specific reason why they’ve been on campus in the past.

“That’s not always the case with other schools. It’s really important we get people here and they’re able to get a first impression because in general the impression that they leave here with is better than they come in with,” Brown said to WVSports.com.

The Mountaineers have certainly done that in this current class as the program hosted a large number of their top 2021 prospects multiple times dating back to junior days last year, recruiting camps, game-day visits and a set of six junior day events from December to early March.

West Virginia currently has seven commitments in the class and while the process has been accelerated due to visits being shut down and players making early decisions, the total is right around where Brown imagined it would be even if things has proceeded as normal.

A big reason for that is those personal connections that the coaches have forged over a period of time.

“The guys that have committed to us, they’ve been on campus multiple times. That’s something that’s really important,” Brown said.

In fact, Brown believes that the total could potentially have even been higher if visits had not been brought to a halt because they were set to host several official visitors during the weekend of the spring game on top of the practice visits that could have occurred.

But those visits are key in the approach of Brown and his coaches.

“We have to be really careful of taking commitments if guys haven’t been on campus, if they haven’t been able to spend time on players and if they haven’t watched us practice or see us coach. During the normal they would see those things. If those questions haven’t been answered then we have to be careful,” Brown said.

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