Athletic Director Wren Baker believes the head coaching job of the West Virginia football program is an attractive one for potential candidates for a lot of different reasons.
One is the fact that the Mountaineers have a rabid, passionate fan base that thoroughly supports the football team. That was the case this past year, outside the season finale against UCF but the game tied to the Thanksgiving Break for the students always sees dips in attendance.
“Other than that, one week, when we open the gates people are coming. And there’s not very many programs in the country that can say that,” Baker said.
That passion is something that draws candidates in the sense that people want to be somewhere that it matters, and Morgantown certainly has that to offer. And when you combine that with the history and tradition of the football program it’s a good combination to have success.
West Virginia also plays in the Big 12 Conference which is considered wide open as evidenced by the conference championship game race this past season which included a large portion of the league until the final week.
The Mountaineers are a geographic outlier in the league and while that hurts with travel, there also are some advantages when it comes to recruiting footprint and the type of athletes you can recruit.
“You’re not stuck recruiting the same kids. Your recruiting footprint is different, you have a little different something to sell,” Baker said.
Those three things are massive selling points of the post but another aspect that will aid a new head coach is the fact that West Virginia expects to be at or near the full participation in revenue sharing. That means that finding a candidate who understands roster construction and how to go about dealing with that is critical.
West Virginia is a proud program with a lot of tradition and while there are challenges to every job, there are certainly a lot of reasons that make this post one that is desirable.
“Yeah, there’s challenges to every job but I think most coaches understand that every job has its challenges but there’s enough here to be highly successful,” Baker said.
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