Neal Brown Squashes South Carolina Rumors

Maybe you saw over the weekend that West Virginia Mountaineers head coach Neal Brown was linked to the currently open head coaching position at South Carolina Gamecocks. The tweets surrounding the head coach ramped up fervently.

Of course this led to fans both denigrating the South Carolina job and bashing the current head coach for leaving before the rebuild was complete. South Carolina isn’t a step down. It isn’t a step up but let’s be a bit honest, its not a step down. Lateral. Yeah we can agree its a lateral move. Is it easier to win here or there? Likely depends on the coach. As for Neal, to get angry at the coach before he has said a word is asinine.

The head coach didn’t waste anytime though when he was asked about the current vacancy and his involvement.

I guess it’s good because it means people realize we’re doing something good. But I’m not a candidate there. - West Virginia Head Coach Neal Brown

There you have it. Brown isn’t a candidate for South Carolina. For my part, I maintained that Neal to SC didn’t make a lot of sense, more from Carolina’s sense than from Neal’s. Neal is currently 10-10 in his tenure at WVU and has one win over a team with a winning record (Kansas State 2019). That isn’t the type of hire you make when you want to fire up a fanbase. That doesn’t mean Neal wouldn’t be a fantastic hire, it just isn’t one you make. Part of the reason that we coveted Brown was because of his three 10-win seasons at Troy. If he was 25-14, that luster isn’t as bright.

If South Carolina was really interested in Neal, then we should be happy. It should help cement that we have a good coach if other teams are interested in him already. I expect that Neal will be here for at least a few more years and in that time, we are going to do some really special things.