West Virginia decided Sunday to fire head coach Neal Brown and will search for its 36th coach in program history in the next few weeks. There are a handful of names that I think would make a lot of sense as Brown’s replacements. Let’s go through them.

Odom is the first name that comes to mind because of his ties to WVU AD Wren Baker, with whom he spent time in Memphis and Missouri. Odom was the defensive coordinator at Memphis from 2012 to 2014 before taking the same job at Missouri. He was promoted to head coach in 2016 after Gary Pinkel resigned following the 2015 season. Odom went 25-25 in his four years on the job before being fired. Last year, he returned to the head coaching job at UNLV, a program that struggled to win throughout its existence and turned things around with a 19-7 record over the last two seasons. With a win over Boise State in the Mountain West Conference championship, he will defeat the Runnin’ Rebels in the College Football Playoff.

The chances of Saban taking over West Virginia are slim, but hey, you never know in this world. This would be a home run for the Mountaineers and would land the best coach in college football history. Would this be something Saban would even be interested in? I don’t know if he would seriously consider it, but if you’re WVU, the worst thing he can do is say no, right?

Jimbo, another West Virginia native son, would likely be happy to take a head coaching job at the Power Four level again, and after the huge salary he received from Texas A&M, it may not take a big contract to bring him back to the Power Four to bring Mountain State. In his eight years at Florida State, he posted an 83-23 record, including winning a national championship in 2013. In six years at A&M, Fisher compiled a 45-25 record and graduated from several top recruiting classes during his tenure .

Chadwell has slowly but surely risen through the coaching ranks, becoming one of the Group of Five’s most talked-about head coaches since turning Coastal Carolina’s program around in 2020. During his time at Coastal, he posted a 39-22 record, including a 31-6 mark in his final three years at the helm. In his first year at Liberty, he led the Flames to a 13-1 record. This year they went 8-3, with their match against Appalachian State canceled due to Hurricane Helene. He will be a hot candidate this cycle.

The former WVU head coach has been a popular name floating around among fans for quite some time. When you look around at the Group of Five level, there is no one more successful and proven than Rich Rod. When he left WVU for Michigan in 2007, he felt the relationship between him and the state would never be repaired. After several years of average to above-average results, Mountaineer fans look back on the Rich Rod era in awe. Bringing Rich Rod back would certainly anger a large portion of the fan base, but they will forgive him if he wins.

Kotelnicki will be a good head coach one day, possibly as early as next season. He helped Lance Leipold turn around Buffalo and then Kansas. The work he did at Kansas was notable, and his absence was evident early in the season as the Jayhawks continued to find themselves on the wrong end of one-score games.

Candle may not be considered a special pick, but he has become a consistent winner in the MAC in Toledo. During his 10-year tenure, he compiled a 72-40 record and led the Rockets to the AP Top 25 multiple times.

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