Gordon Gee Releases Statements On Shane Lyons, Neal Brown

Following the, uh, expected news that Shane Lyons was no longer employed as the Athletic Director for the West Virginia Mountaineers, university president Gordon Gee released the following statements:

“I deeply appreciate Shane’s leadership over the past eight years and I wish him well. But with the ever-changing landscape of intercollegiate athletics, I believe this is an opportunity to bring a fresh perspective to our program.”

“We are supporting Coach Neal Brown and our team as we complete our season over the next few weeks. We are aware there are some deficiencies, but we have not given up on the coach and the team, and they have not given up on each other. The evaluation of the football program will be the first task of our new athletic director and no changes will be made until that review has been completed.”

According to Mike Casazza at EerSports.com, Rob Alsop will take over as interim AD.

Vice president for strategic initiatives, Rob Alsop, will serve as interim director of athletics as the school begins “a national search” for Lyons’ replacement. The University has hired Turnkey ZRG to assist in the search, something the schools says will take “three to four weeks” to finish.

We will continue to update this post as news breaks. The school has scheduled a press conference for 1 PM today to discuss this news.