MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — In the past two days, West Virginia’s football program has lost three more players to the transfer portal, two of the scholarship variety. But before you allow yourself to start thinking, “Oh, no, not this portal stuff again,” and move on to something else, let me assure you that this is neither about the portal nor who went into it.
That is just a fact that can’t be afforded, as much a part of today’s world as COVID, electric cars and 24-hour cable news that isn’t really news at all.
Now, it’s true that losing tight end Charles Finley and starting cornerback Darryl Porter Jr. is not the kind of thing you welcome and, when added to the numbers that are leaving the Puskar Center as if someone were in there pulling fire alarms, is a cause for concern. But there is a much larger cause for concern within the athletic department that must be addressed, and that is that its future is very much uncertain.
For lack of a better image, it seems to be in the same kind of danger that the human heart faces as a major artery becomes clogged, with blockage cutting down the lifeline day by day, week by week and month by month.
It is reaching the point where something has to be done, be it a prescription for medicine or some kind of surgery.
We’re not just talking football, although that is the aorta of the program, or even just football and men’s basketball, for it seems to go deeper.
You have to include women’s basketball into the conversation, as well as women’s soccer, the two top women’s sports, as well as rifle, which has not won a national championship in four years (one championship was canceled due to COVID).
Now, labeling not winning a national championship as concerning is setting the bar high, but rifle is a program with 19 team national championships and 25 individual titles, so it is in a slump, too.
The wrestling program has not taken off under Tim Flynn as hoped, and WVU’s baseball program, while competitive, is coming off a difficult season and no one is expecting anything near a championship this year. Even an NCAA bid is uncertain.
The umbrella over all this is being held by athletic director Shane Lyons, who has avoided much scrutiny during his tenure after replacing Oliver Luck eight years ago, but certainly it’s difficult to make a case that the department is in a better place than it was when he took over.
Yes, facilities are better and there has been COVID to deal with, but I find it difficult to accept new coaching contracts and raises and bonuses being awarded for underachieving.
Neal Brown’s football team clearly has some kind of internal problems as the players flow through the portal and coaches move in and out. His record last season was 6-7, but that is beefed up with a 66-0 victory over Long Island University, a team that had no business being on the schedule.
Brown has had three years in at WVU, and two of them were losing seasons with the only winning season needing a bowlwin over Army to get on the plus side. With half of his staff all receiving new contracts to carry them two years into the future (see details in this week’s print edition of the Blue & Gold News) and with Brown working on a contract that runs through 2026, one can assume Lyons believes that he’s safe
for two more years, too.
On the mens’ basketball team, while we all were caught up in Bob Huggins’ run toward and beyond 900 victories and whether the Hall of Fame would induct him this time around or not, his team slipped away from a 13-2 start built upon playing mostly patsies into troubled seas.
The record is now 14-11, and with nine losses in the past 10 games, there’s no guarantee of a better than .500 record. If the team falls beneath .500 it will mark the second time in four years and the third time in 10 years that it will finish underwater. In fact, West Virginia’s Big 12 Conference record under Huggins is just 89-84 — just five games better than .500.
Mike Carey, the women’s basketball coach, finds himself at .500 after losing at Kansas and is currently trying to keep from finishing under .500 for the first time since 2006. His team has lost four of five and six of nine in a season that was born with much hope, but has also been marred with injuries and mid-year player departures.
Women’s soccer? It was really one of the bright lights in WVU’s athletic department, a team that made it to the finals of the NCAA championship in a 23-2-2 2016 season. Last season they were 10-5-5. Nikki Izzo-Brown, the only coach the team has ever had, dominated the Big 12 after losing just two conference games in the first six conference years, but the Mountaineers have lost 10 conference games the past four seasons.
Other than the men’s soccer team, which does not compete in the Big 12 but which arrived on the national scene in a big way last year under coach Dan Stratford with a run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, there is no shining light outside of rifle in the athletic lineup.
All of this comes in a transitory time in college sports unlike any that has ever preceded it. It’s on Lyons’ plate and deserves immediate attention, for the WVU franchise is trending downward and needs some new ideas to get it back on track
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February 17, 2022 at 06:00PM
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