MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University director of athletics Shane Lyons reflected on the recently completed 2021 football season in a United Bank Playbook special that was posted on the Mountaineers' social media platforms Tuesday afternoon.
 
Overall, Lyons said he was disappointed in West Virginia's 6-7 record that culminated with December's 18-6 loss to Minnesota in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl in Phoenix.
 
"I think the expectation was more wins for our football program, more consistency overall and we were lacking some of that throughout the season," Lyons told Tony Caridi Tuesday afternoon. "That's why we've done what we've done the last couple of days to make some movement within the coaching staff and see what that's going to look like in building Mountaineer football into a program of which we can all be proud."
 
Lyons said he sat down with coach Neal Brown following the team's disappointing 2-4 start to the season to evaluate things during the bye week, and the evaluation process continued as soon as the season ended on Dec. 28.
 
He points out the Mountaineers did win four of their remaining six games to become bowl eligible for the second time in three seasons under Brown, but following the Minnesota game he said they discussed what moves were next for the football program.
 
"We were not getting the production that we needed (offensively) and we talked through that saying, 'Let's look through the coaching shuffle and what's going to be best for our program.' Defensively, we felt we were in the games and performed at a high level, so how do we make some adjustments for the future? That resulted in the news (Monday) of the hiring of Graham Harrell as our offensive coordinator."
 
Lyons touted Harrell's extensive offensive background, first as a record-setting quarterback for Mike Leach at Texas Tech, his experiences playing in the NFL and then his tenures at North Texas and USC developing high-powered attacks at those two places.
 
Lyons was also enamored with Harrell's track record of developing young, talented quarterbacks.
 
"He took programs that struggled offensively in a lot of areas and turned them into a top 25 team in many categories. That's what we want," Lyons said. "We need to be able to score. I think our defense can keep us in games, so how can (Harrell) help our offense and help develop young quarterbacks?
 
"I think Mountaineer Nation has gotten used to scoring a lot of points and our offense this year was not putting the points on the scoreboard that we needed to win more games," the seventh-year AD noted. "That's where we had to evaluate things, and I give coach Brown a lot of credit for digging into this and finding out that Graham was going to be available. Ultimately, we got to the point of making the announcement on Monday that he was going to be our new offensive coordinator."
 
Despite the team's 6-7 record, Lyons points to many positive internal things that have positioned Mountaineer football for future success, including the $55 million that was recently spent to upgrade the Milan Puskar Center.
 
In total, more than $100 million has been invested in Mountaineer football since Lyons became director of athletics in 2015. These investments paid off handsomely during the recent December signing period when Brown's staff inked a recruiting class rated 24^th in the country by Rivals – WVU's highest ranking since Rivals began rating classes in 2002.
 
"There are some great things that have happened within our football program, and there are things you have to evaluate and say 'we've got to get better.' I think that's what we've done over the last 10 days is say, 'How do we get better?' I think a lot of pieces are already in place," Lyons noted. 
 
"You talk about recruiting, I feel very good about our recruiting in having a top 25 class. That speaks volumes," he added. "I feel good about the pieces that we're adding, but offensively we've got to do better. With the hiring of Graham, that gives us the opportunity to get better on offense and we look forward to seeing what can happen next season and in future seasons. 
 
"I do think our football program will continue to get better, I have all the trust and faith in head coach Neal Brown, and we'll continue to work and evaluate our program as we move forward to make Mountaineer Nation very proud," Lyons concluded.