West Virginia is developing the football program in all areas
West Virginia head coach Neal Brown is excited about where his program is at heading into the 2024 season.
The sixth-year head man is comfortable with his coaches and the layering all the way down to the support staff and their assistants. But that’s not just the on-the-field coaches, that spans from nutrition to academics to strength and conditioning to sports psychology and all the way down the ladder.
“Our support areas are really strong right now,” Brown said.
The development of the nutrition aspect is one that has been a process as West Virginia has worked with Sodexo and their chef along with director of sports nutrition Haley Bishop.
That started with stability and proceeded to add staff to that section with dietician Bailey Kassner joining the program in 2023 while utilizing interns from the nutrition program at the university.
“We’ve got people that have been in our program two to three years that have developed, that have expertise, and we were able to hire an assistant,” Brown said. “We’ve had stability with our chef, and it’s been a mix.”
The mix includes finding a balance between nutrition and what the players want to eat and then focusing on meal preparation and all other aspects. That also meant embracing the technology side just as they do in all other aspects of the program in order to be different not only for development but recruiting.
“Also, vitamins, supplements and also doing some things that are cutting edge. We do dehydration testing, we’re really involved in vitamin D. We always want to be innovative,” Brown said.
More than ever it’s critical to be able to explain the why to players who are more informed than in the past and it’s helped to accelerate the growth in that area as well as others.
And when you combine that with the work being done by the strength and conditioning staff led by Mike Joseph it’s led to some impressive results for the program with their lowest body fat percentage of Brown’s time and the looks of a contending power four football team.
Part of that also has come with Brown focusing on his strengths and what he needs to do while giving those areas to the people qualified to lead them. While the head coach has a pulse in those departments, he is admittedly not an expert and that trust has helped there, too.
“Trust me I’m not going down and telling Mike how to run the weight room,” he said.
On the field, the Mountaineers have strong leadership that has developed over time in the program and the plan is to remain in camp mode up until the first day of school Aug. 21 before shifting over to solely Penn State. That means scrimmaging twice and being physical with tackling and other aspects while also preparing for the rest of the schedule to get ready for what lies ahead this coming season.
“We’re going to make it more game like four or five times before we suit up against Penn State,” he said.
The final aspect that has seen improvements due to rule changes within college football is the fact that now everybody is able to coach on the field and those analysts and graduate assistants can now get their feet wet in the profession as well as take on larger instructional roles.
It’s a rule that Brown believes was for the best and it should have an immediate impact on special teams with improving fundamentals as well as breaking up some of the bigger rooms to allow coaches to have smaller groups.
For example, they can break down the secondary into corners, safeties, nickels or spears or at other spots where there are larger numbers such as the offensive line.
That should be especially beneficial when it comes to developmental practices once the season begins.
“Now it’s not going to be as taxing,” he said.
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