Neal Brown supports NFL-style changes in college football
Neal Brown is in favor of as many things that resemble the NFL in the game of college football as possible. So recent changes across the sport is something he certainly supports.
The reason is simple, it makes the viewing experience more seamless for the average football fan and also creates a better game product.
“There’s way too many differences right now,” Brown said.
But recent changes have tried to adjust that.
One of those is the introduction of helmet communication, from coach to one player on the field on each side of the ball. It's something that West Virginia utilized in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl game and has done over the last two spring practices.
“So it’s not necessarily new to us. We’re using a different company now but I think it’s going to help defenses as well,” he said.
The quarterback is the representative on offense and will talk to Brown, while the Mountaineers used the green dot on the MIKE linebacker during spring practice but Brown admitted that it’s still up in the air who will wear it to communicate once things are kicked off in the fall. The defensive player will communicate with Jordan Lesley.
Still, West Virginia has trained multiple people to handle the communication on the defensive side of the ball and it could end up being opponent-based.
"You want it to be a linebacker or a secondary person so it really depends on who you're playing and where you’re going to communicate the most, where the most difficult communication is," he said.
But that way the players can disseminate the information to their teammates on the field without the use of signals and provide ways around previous concerns.
"It takes some of the sloppiness off the sideline," Brown. said. "I think you're going to still see that for teams that want to play fast, but it gives you some options. If you feel like a team has really got your signals, it gives you some options on how you can communicate."
College football also will introduce a two-minute warning at the end of each half this year and Brown believes that will be good not only for strategy but from an officiating perspective. Because some of the rules are different under two minutes with the clocking stopping on first downs and it will serve as a reminder for officials, too.
It also will force coaches to decide if they want to use their timeouts ahead or after the two-minute warning like teams currently do in the NFL.
“There’s going to be some strategy involved,” he said.
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