Can football signings bring Mountaineers any help for 2023 season?

Brown
SHEPHERDSTOWN — The transfer portal beckoned to a large number of West Virginia University football players. They entered it with hopes of finding more inviting conditions elsewhere along with the covetous playing time they couldn’t find in Morgantown.
Many of them didn’t play much at all or never played. But some of them were starters.
Names like Bryce Ford-Wheaton, Charles Woods and the demoted quarterback JT Daniels are easily recognizable.
But the vast majority didn’t acquit themselves with glowing statistics or generous playing time, as the Mountaineers finished with a 5-7 record and missed a bowl game again.
It was the third losing season in Neal Brown’s four years. However, extenuating circumstances such as a rash of injuries played a leading role in the overall season.

Lyons
The Mountaineers winning over Oklahoma and Oklahoma State must have been major reasons Brown was retained.
The long list of those players leaving via the transfer portal or other reasons has Ford-Wheaten, Woods, Daniels, Corbin Page, Ty Woodley, Mumu Bin-Wahad, Reese Smith, Mike O’Laughlin, Will Crowder, Naim Muhammad, Jordan White, Taurus Simmons, Sam James, Kaden Prather and Jordan Jefferson. That’s 15 players right there.
Coach Brown will attempt to strengthen his team by heavily recruiting some of the players who entered the transfer portal from other schools. He has been particularly successful in bringing in quarterbacks from elsewhere during his tenure in Morgantown.
The National Signing Day for getting recruits just passed. It is basically impossible to know how much help any of those names will be. And, as is the case every year now, some of those just-recruited players will also jump into the transfer portal themselves and be gone elsewhere after one or more seasons.
It would seem on the surface that Coach Brown’s leash has been stretched as far as it can be. Does WVU have to go to a bowl game next year? Does he have to win more conference games? Do season ticket sales have to show more numbers or at least remain stable?
The removal of then-athletic director Shane Lyons had football season/coach implications, since football drives the athletics locomotive.
At least the Mountaineers do have five conference games at home next season with only four on the road.
But the 2022-formitable nonconference schedule is also just as rock hard with the addition of Penn State on the road.
Logically, more than a few of those players entering from the transfer portal have to be able contributors for win-loss improvements to ensue.
Expecting first-year freshmen to shake the football world like earthquakes is unrealistic. At least in the categories of wins and losses.
After enduring the many injuries seen in the 2022 season, finding valuable depth could be vital to the team’s improvement.
Even with some able depth in the just-completed season, WVU was continually ravaged by injuries at running back.
College football is all about recruiting, and then keeping those recruits around to be more complete players at ages 21-through-24.
None of the heated conversations that take place under the shaded canopies of RVs at tailgate activities outside Puskar Field can influence wins or losses.
Those influences must come from the players and the coaches. And those players come from all directions and all campuses in this modern day and age.
- Lyons
- Brown