West Virginia finding niche in recruiting
Signing day is the culmination of a number of years invested in the recruiting process. While it’s just a day, it’s often two years' worth of work to get to the point where prospects sign with schools.
The evaluation process for West Virginia isn’t complex. The Mountaineers started with over 3,000 prospects in the 2024 cycle that was eventually whittled down to 22.
It begins with an initial evaluation and then goes down the line making sure that a prospect can athletically play at the Big 12 Conference level and succeed then making sure they academically can handle the responsibility. From there and the thing that takes the most time is the character piece.
“Not only off the field character but on the field character from a competitive standpoint. And that’s where the real digging takes in. That’s really where success is. You judge on and off the field character and are you a fit in that room?” head coach Neal Brown said.
Finding the right fit in each position room is important and a process that admittedly Brown has taken his lumps at times in trying to figure out. In the past, the Mountaineers experienced almost a two-year cleanse of the wide receiver room to get it to where Brown is confident in the direction it’s going.
Related: The written history of the West Virginia football 2024 class
Morgantown and the West Virginia football program isn’t for everybody but over time Brown has become more comfortable in the type of players that will have success.
And he isn’t afraid to say no if he doesn’t believe it will be a fit.
“If I don’t have a good feeling when they’re here or when I go to see them in school or in home, then we x those guys. I think that’s just part of becoming more comfortable too, in the past where I would probably take a chance now I'm less likely to take a chance unless we have a great room,” he said.
Another aspect that has taken some time to learn on the job is where to recruit, The Mountaineers had a total of 16 of their 22 signees within a six-hour radius of Morgantown. That is what Brown and his coaching staff have deemed as the primary area for the program.
“I’ve got a much better feel for who we can get and who’s the right fit. There’s no doubt you got to recruit in a big area here. I think you can get spread too thin if you’re not careful,” Brown said. “I think it takes a little while to get the right people in the right areas. I’m not saying we’ve got it figured out just yet, there’s probably some areas we need to continue to work on, but it’s been a learning process.”
It also doesn’t hurt matters that seven of the 22 will be enrolling at the mid-term.
The focus of this class was in the defensive backfield and the defensive and offensive lines. There will be a transfer portal component to round out the rest of the group, but when it came to high school options that was what the Mountaineers sat out to accomplish and they did.
Brown felt that earlier in his time atop the program he felt he had the right idea in these areas, but the execution wasn’t the best. It’s now closer to where he wants to be.
It’s part of the process when it comes to growing over time.
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