Former West Virginia head coach Neal Brown has emerged as a leading candidate for the North Texas job, sources tell Dave Campbell’s Texas Football. Neal has not been offered the job and the Mean Green are still conducting interviews led by athletic director Jared Mosley, but Brown’s name is the one mentioned most by industry insiders and fellow coaches. 

Brown is currently the special assistant to the head coach at Texas after spending six years in charge of the Mountaineers in the Big 12 Conference. He led West Virginia to a 37-35 record over that time, winning nine games in 2023 and leading the program to bowl games in four of his last five seasons. He was excellent the last time he led a G5 program, elevating Troy to three double-digit seasons from 2016-18, winning a Sun Belt Conference championship in 2017. 

Brown, 45, played for Air Raid pioneers Hal Mumme and Mike Leach at Kentucky, his home state, before transferring to UMass. He worked at Troy under Tony Franklin as a wide receiver coach and spent three years in Texas was the Red Raiders’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2010-12. 

North Texas is in the job market because current head coach Eric Morris is moving on to Oklahoma State after the conclusion of the 2025 season. Morris and the Mean Green are 11-1 and play Tulane for the AC championship on Friday night in New Orleans. The winner gets an auto-bid into the College Football Playoff. Morris is in Year 3 at North Texas and this will be his only winning season. 

Brown isn’t the only name in the mix. It seems like North Texas wants to find a coach with a similar profile to Morris – an offensive-minded coach with previous experience as a head coach. Names like Tyson Helton (Western Kentucky), Zach Kittley (FAU), and Billy Napier (former HC at Florida) are also names we’ve heard, but sources tell us that Kittley is staying at FAU.