WVU football enjoying top 25 win, looking to ride high into Big 12 play
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- West Virginia football knocked off No. 25 Virginia 38-27. If you look at the scoreboard, the Mountaineers won by 11, but it was almost more, with the Cavaliers scoring a late touchdown with under a minute to play. In Rich Rodriguez's second trip to Morgantown, there's an argument this is his top win, battling with the road-ranked win over Houston and the overtime win over Pitt in the Backyard Brawl.
With the win, WVU is one of the 35 teams in the FBS still undefeated through Week 3. The Mountaineers are one of six Big 12 teams that haven't lost, standing with Texas Tech as the only team in the conference with a top 25 win.
After the ranked win and in dominant fashion, WVU received votes in the AP Poll this week, coming in unofficially at No. 28. The last time the Mountaineers were ranked in the top 25 of the AP Poll was in 2018, when the team started 5-0.
In Year 2 and three games in, Rodriguez has WVU knocking on the door of being nationally relevant again. Rodriguez was obviously going to celebrate, as he did after the Backyard Brawl win.
"We’ll take a red solo cup, put a little juice in it," Rodriguez said. "We probably won’t drink wine and put our pinky finger out, but we will have some red solo cups. I bet there’s some Mountaineer fans as we speak somewhere in the city of Charlotte with some red solo cups and refreshments in there as we speak. I wish I were there. I’ll probably share one with my buddies on the way home."
It's arguably one of the biggest wins of Rodriguez's second tenure. But with the national attention, starting 3-0, it's easy for all the noise to be rat poison, as West Virginia-born and legendary college football coach Nick Saban called it.
This is just Week 3. There's a lot of college football still left to play.
Last year, WVU came all the way back to beat Pitt. Rodriguez was running up the bill at Applebee’s, and Morgantown was over the moon. After that win, WVU started Big 12 play and lost its next five games. The Mountaineers won two more games the rest of the season after the win over Pitt.
WVU starts Big 12 play, and it might not be a soft landing spot. The Mountaineers host Oklahoma State on Sept. 26 for another night game at 7:00 p.m.
The Cowboys were the talk of the offseason, with new head coach Eric Morris from North Texas and the luggage he brought with him. Morris took quarterback Drew Mestemaker, running back Caleb Hawkins and receiver Wyatt Young with him to Stillwater. Some had them in the preseason top 25, and they come in unofficially at No. 30 in this week’s AP Poll, receiving votes.
Oklahoma State had a rough start, losing to Tulsa, but rebounded quickly and beat No. 6 Oregon at home 39-31. The Cowboys rolled Murray State to move to 2-1, heading into Morgantown.
Despite the better record and the top 25 win, WVU opened as a 2.5-point underdog on DraftKings. The Mountaineers do have a 59.7% chance to win, according to ESPN Analytics. The winner of the matchup could likely break into the top 25 of the AP Poll.
Rodriguez knows that the win over Virginia, although it’s massive for the program and the season, is just the beginning of still a long Big 12 slate ahead, starting in less than a week.
"It's a great win against a really good football program," Rodriguez said. "But it only counts as one. We’ll enjoy the hell out of it tonight, and then tomorrow evening we’ll start moving on to our conference play."