WVSports.com continues with our popular feature: The 3-2-1. We'll break down three things we learned that week, two questions we have and give one prediction.
Here is the next installment of the 3-2-1 looking at the West Virginia football program, the latest on basketball and what’s happening in recruiting.
3 things I learned:
1–The search still raging. The search for the next head football coach at West Virginia has been raging on for over a week and at this point we still do not know who will be tabbed with the post. Athletic Director Wren Baker has kept things close to the vest, as promised, after he met with media Tuesday and concrete information has been hard to come by in regards to who is going to get the job.
There are certainly obvious candidates out there with names such as Andy Kotelnicki, Rich Rodriguez and Jeff Monken being mentioned since it began and others that have been mentioned throughout while there are wildcards that could be in play that as well.
Baker has made it clear that while head coaching experience is a plus, it isn't a necessity this time around when it comes to football as long as coordinators are able to thoroughly explain their plans to run the program.
The West Virginia job is an attractive one for a lot of different reasons. Not only do the Mountaineers have a strong, passionate fanbase and football matters in Morgantown but as WVSports.com had previously mentioned the administration plans to be at full or near full when it comes to revenue sharing.
That will be a critical aspect to any job moving forward and that commitment to go along with being situated in fertile recruiting grounds in a league as wide open as the Big 12 makes the job one that is appealing to potential candidates.
But Baker has been clear all along that while he understands the faster he makes a hire, the better off the next head coach will be he isn't going to rush into this and stick to his process. That stared with many different zoom interviews and goes to in-person meetings where he will narrow down the list of candidates to find the best fit.
There's a lot going on with the current calendar in college sports with the transfer portal set to open - but this decision is far bigger than one off-season and it's clear at this stage that Baker is going to make sure he has what he believes is the right choice.
2–A signing day to remember. West Virginia has had more star power, more excitement and better overall days when it comes to national signing day but perhaps none as memorable as what the Mountaineers coaching staff pulled off this past week.
The remainder of the coaching staff and recruiting coordinators Trey Neyer and Ken Signoretti, along with the rest of the staff, laced up their boots and went to work after head coach Neal Brown was fired. That required a massive effort all around and it's hard to argue with the results.
In this column last week I specifically stated that I didn't know what to expect with the start of the early signing period in the wake of Brown's firing. You could have given me a long list of guesses, and I probably wouldn't have nailed the fact that West Virginia not only kept 19 of their commitments in place to sign letters of intent but added two more high quality prospects in Columbus (Oh.) Marion Franklin 2025 cornerback Dawayne Galloway and Bel Air (Md.) 2025 safety Julien Horton.
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