by Jim Buzzerd
Meet the assistants
The West Virginia University Men’s Basketball Team picked up their third conference win of the season last Tuesday with a 104-96 triple overtime thriller over TCU. The win avenged a 31-point loss to the Horned Frogs in January. While it was refreshing to see the youthful Mountaineers get a win with just eight scholarship players available, they were unable to sustain any momentum for Saturday’s 92-80 loss at Oklahoma. Now, with a record of 11-18, WVU will host Iowa State this Wednesday and close out the regular season with a trip to Oklahoma State on Saturday. The Mountaineers will have the opportunity to play the spoiler beginning next Wednesday in the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City.
There will be plenty of upcoming basketball conversation, especially when coach Bob Huggins begins to ‘fix’ the current state of the program. One presumes a big part of that fix will include some current players moving on. Until then we’ll take a look at new head football coach Neal Brown’s new coaching staff, beginning with the offensive staff this week and the defensive coaches next week.
Brown is expected to handle much of the offensive coordinator duties himself, but Matt Moore and Chad Scott have been named co-offensive coordinators. Moore will also coach the offensive line and Scott will coach the running backs.
Moore came with WVU coach Neal Brown after serving as the offensive coordinator and offensive line coach for four years at Troy (2015-18). He spent two years on the offensive staff at Texas Tech in 2010-11 and was on the staff with Brown at Troy in 2006.
His Texas Tech offensive line paved the way for the Red Raiders to score 28 rushing touchdowns in 2008, second most in school history. The Red Raiders led the country in passing offense, registering 5,371 yards and were No. 4 in total offense with 6,903 yards.
With Brown and Moore on the Texas Tech staff together in 2010, the Red Raiders finished No. 7 nationally in passing, No. 15 in total offense and No. 23 in scoring offense. The following year, the Red Raiders ranked No. 7 in passing, No. 13 in total offense and No. 22 in scoring offense.
Scott is reunited with Brown after working with him during three different coaching tenures: Kentucky (RB/2013-14), Texas Tech (RB/2010-12) and Troy (RB/2007-09). He came to Morgantown after serving as the tight ends and hybrids coach at North Carolina from 2016-18. In 2018, the Tar Heel offense ranked No. 31 nationally in total offense, averaging 442.1 yards per game.
Sean Reagan will coach the quarterbacks. Reagan came to West Virginia after serving as an assistant coach at Troy from 2008-18, including the past four years as a member of Brown’s staff. He was the co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2018, oversaw the quarterbacks and running backs the previous three years (2014-17) and was the quarterbacks coach from 2011-14. He also served as a graduate assistant in 2010 at Texas Tech, where he worked with Brown, the offensive coordinator of the Red Raiders at the time.
Xavier Dye will coach the wide receivers. A native of Greenwood, South Carolina, Dye came to West Virginia after serving as an offensive graduate assistant coach for the past two years at Clemson, assisting with the receiving corps. The Tigers finished with a 27-2 record during those years, won two Atlantic Coast Conference Championships, advanced to the CFP semifinals in 2017 and won the national championship in 2018.
Travis Trickett rounds out the offensive staff as the tight ends and inside receivers coach. We mentioned Trickett in last week’s column. He was a student assistant coach at West Virginia from 2003-07, is part of a Mountaineer football family. His father, Rick, a longtime collegiate offensive line coach, was an assistant coach at WVU in 1978-79 and 2001-06. His younger brother, Clint, was a starting quarterback for WVU during the 2013 and 2014 seasons.
