(Photo by WVU Athletics)
All seemed lost back on a rain-soaked Mountaineer Field when the Mountaineers lost to the Kansas Jayhawks in overtime on September 10th. For the first time since 1979, WVU was sitting with an 0-2 record which included a 55-42 loss to the perennial “cellar dweller” of the Big 12 Conference. Two weeks have passed since then, and this picture I just painted for you has completely flipped.
West Virginia has bounced back with two blowout wins against Towson and Virginia Tech, and Kansas has taken down Houston and Duke to improve to 4-0. As for the rest of the Big 12 – Texas Tech, Kansas State, and Baylor all sit with 1-0 records in league play while Iowa State, Oklahoma, and Texas all sit with an 0-1 record. If you were telling me this would be the case going into the season, I would’ve called you insane. But this is 2022, what the hell hasn’t been insane? This is the reality we live in right now.
Though things are far from peachy in Morgantown right now, things are also far from doom and gloom. While there isn’t a single team remaining on WVU’s schedule they can’t lose to, there certainly isn’t a team that they can’t beat either. For the first time in what seems like forever, the Big 12 Conference is wide open. Folks, Kansas – that’s right, KANSAS – is even in the picture now. Who knows what could happen?
All ten teams in the Big 12 have their strengths, but they also have their flaws. This has to be the most even conference in all of Power Five College Football when it comes to the balance of the powers right now – and that’s a good thing for WVU.
Despite starting 0-1 in conference play with an abysmal loss at home, things could quickly get turned around if WVU can somehow pull off victories against Texas, Baylor, and then Texas Tech on the road. Should that somehow happen, then we will certainly be cooking with grease. The team will be confident and will have proven that they are contenders. Though they may be able to afford to lose one of the next three matchups, lose more than that and it’s likely another Liberty Bowl or whatever that misery Bowl was they lost to Minnesota last year.
Keep faith, folks. College Football is a weird game where weird things happen. It’s 2022 after all. If it was going to happen any year, it’d be this year.
Let’s Go Mountaineers!
