West Virginia football trending with 4-star ATH Jaden Mangham

Neal Brown is working on that turnaround. West Virginia football wasn’t in a “bad” place when he took over, but it was also not where it should have been.

The program that had seen plenty of success over the years was trending in the wrong direction and Dana Holgorsen’s departure only made things worse. After a couple of decent seasons, Brown is 11-11 heading into year three and he could be facing his most important test yet.

The Mountaineers have plenty of talent returning and coming in so a bowl berth is expected and anything less could lead to Brown being on a warmer seat.

For now, though, he’s recruiting at a good level and his 2022 class is only getting better as the summer weeks pass. West Virginia may only have the No. 42 class in the country but it’s also only 10 commits deep. The Mountaineers are close to adding to that group with one of the best athletes in the 2022 cycle in Michigan native Jaden Mangham.

The four-star athlete from Franklin, Mich., is likely to be a defensive back at the next level and West Virginia may steal him from the grasp of Mel Tucker and Michigan State.

In fact, four crystal balls on 247Sports have come in for the Mountaineers to land Mangham this month after his June 4 official visit.

West Virginia football recruiting trending up

If you’re a West Virginia football fan, you have to feel good about the direction of the program’s recruiting with a handful of top targets trending toward the Mountaineers this month.

On top of that, the Mountaineers landed their QB1 earlier this month when former Florida State pledge Nicco Marchiol committed. If they land Mangham, too, he would become the second-highest ranked commit, just four spots behind Marchiol in the composite and the second four-star in the class.

Brown is doing a solid job on the trail but that soon needs to translate to the field.