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Recruiting and relationships critical to new West Virginia assistants

The West Virginia Mountaineers new assistants have their recruiting territories set.
The West Virginia Mountaineers new assistants have their recruiting territories set.

West Virginia added two new assistants this offseason in co-defensive coordinator ShaDon Brown and defensive line coach AJ Jackson.

Both come to Morgantown not only with impressive resumes on the field, but in their ability to connect not only with prospects but their families on the recruiting trail making them ideal fits for their spots.

Brown, who had previous stops at Colorado and Louisville, has recruited in areas all over the country during his career. For the Mountaineers he will handle primarily the talent rich Washington, D.C., Maryland Virginia area while also doing work in north Florida and South Georgia.

As far as in-state he will be tasked with handling a small piece and then spot recruiting in the state of Kentucky where he has ties not only growing up there but being a high school coach himself.

“It’s a state that has a few players that we have some connections to that are good players,” he said.

As for Jackson, he will slide into the role of primarily recruiting in Washington, D.C. and the south quarter through Richmond, Virginia, while also handling a large bulk of the work in central New Jersey all the way to New York City. That also will include a chunk of the northwest corner of Pennsylvania.

“I’ve recruited those areas my whole career,” Jackson said.

That’s a good thing because those areas are places that head coach Neal Brown has made clear that the Mountaineers want to make more concentrated efforts into.

“Where he’s recruited and where he’s from was a good match for us. We want to be more involved in New jersey and New York City and that’s his home area. Then we’ve got to be more productive in the D.C. area and down into Richmond and those are two areas he has a lot of experience in,” he said.

Both coaches fit into the makeup of the current staff because they place high priorities on the relationships forged during the process. That is not only with the players they are attempting to recruit to Morgantown but with their families, coaches and other key players in the process.

“I’m a relationship guy. You have to connect with the high school coaches and the kids. Kids have to believe you’ll make them a better man and a better player,” Jackson said.

For Brown, that aspect has been essential. In large part because during his career as a college coach he has been put in plenty of areas that haven’t been his “traditional,” recruiting areas. That has taken him to California, Texas, Georgia and Florida, among many other stops.

But the reason he has been able to have success in that department is because he has always focused on people and cultivating those bonds over time. That aspect travels with you, regardless of where you end up as a recruiter. It’s something he learned firsthand when he was a high school coach and was able to get a feel for what he wanted to see out of college coaches coming into his building.

“They want a genuine guy. I feel like if you can build relationships with people than it doesn’t matter. You can put me in Alaska, and I can recruit Alaska because I’m going to build relationships,” Brown said.

That hasn’t changed for him regardless of the logo he has on his shirt, which is another thing that has made him so successful over the years. He enters every recruitment the same by learning about the player, learning about his situation and then building out from there.

“To me that doesn’t matter where you’re from. That’s just dealing with people,” he said.

The Mountaineers are coming off two very impressive recruiting classes under head coach Neal Brown and these two additions should only help to continue to improve those efforts moving forward.

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