Can WVU football match baseball, women蘑菇视频 basketball success?
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia baseball is on its way to the College World Series. The Mountaineers made it to the NCAA tournament, won their regional and won the super regional. Head coach Steve Sabins has WVU baseball as one of the top eight programs in the country.
Football coach Rich Rodriguez was there to witness it. He sat right behind home plate in Game 1 of the super regional, next to one of his top donors, former WVU punter and ESPN personality Pat McAfee, to witness how special the town of Morgantown becomes when a program has success.
This isn’t the first time. Rodriguez was there in the front row when women’s basketball hosted an NCAA tournament regional and saw the massive turnout for that weekend.
Both of those times, Rodriguez had to be thinking in the back of his mind what this would look like if his football team were to host a College Football Playoff game in Milan Puskar Stadium.
Football is the biggest draw at WVU. It might not be the best, and even when it isn’t good, the fans still flock into the stands. So, for a CFP game, one can only imagine the scenes of the Blue Lot and what the ticket prices will be for that game.
But, fans could be a couple of years out of having that dream become a reality, even if that’s what Rodriguez promised when he came back to Morgantown.
In Rodriguez’s first season back, the Mountaineers finished 4-8. It was one of the worst seasons in recent history. They were one of the worst teams in the Big 12, and lost to Ohio, who isn’t even in the Power Four. There were injuries, but that’s still no reason to lose to Ohio and get blown out by UCF, who was in the same situation as WVU, with a new head coach.
The team wasn’t good, and Rodriguez would admit that. The offensive line allowed the second-most sacks in the Big 12, and the defense had its moments, but it let up the third-most points in the conference. Those were just two of the numerous issues with the team.
The Year 1 team had a long shot of being competitive before the season even started. Rodriguez was hired in December, so he didn’t really get the chance to have a high school recruiting class. Most of his team had to be created through transfers, and depending on who you ask was around 80 new players. That’s a lot of new players who haven’t played together or know the system. There were too many moving parts to work in unison.
Year 2 is where there should be improvement. Rodriguez had a full high school recruiting class and a year to lay down the foundation of what he wants his program to be, and added some big transfers out of the portal. He also made changes to his coaching staff, bringing in offensive line coach Rick Trickett, to make him more comfortable. The grounds to build the program up are set.
The schedule seems favorable at first glance, too. The Mountaineers open the season against Coastal Carolina, Oklahoma State, Iowa State and Utah, who will all have new head coaches in 2026. Cincinnati and TCU will both have new quarterbacks for next season as well. WVU has six teams with either new leaders or new quarterbacks.
But that doesn’t mean a CFP berth is on the horizon, and being in the Big 12 doesn’t help. Texas Tech, who won the Big 12 and lost one game all season, was the only team from the conference to make the 12-team field. Since the Red Raiders won the conference, they were an automatic bid, too. BYU went 11-2 and didn’t make the field, and neither did Utah, who went 10-2.
The Mountaineers most likely need to lose one game to make the CFP next season. After a 4-8 season and games like at Texas Tech, at Utah and at TCU on the schedule, that doesn’t seem possible. A bowl game should be a more reasonable expectation than making the postseason.
There is some hope down the road, though.
Rodriguez’s best team, most likely, will be in the 2027-29 range, when his freshman class, the highest ever at WVU, gets more experience. It’ll be when 4-stars Kevin Brown, Matt Sieg and Amari Latimer have a couple of years under their belt. That’ll be Years 3-5 for Rodriguez.
It’ll also help that it seems like a majority of Power Four programs want to expand the playoff field to 24 teams. That’s moving the goalposts from only losing one game to three or four, which is a lot more feasible.
The only catch to both of these is if Rodriguez makes it that long. There is a lot less patience in college athletics, and if Rodriguez has another bad season or two, after a historically bad season in Year 1, it might be tough to let him attempt to fulfill his promise.
But, after watching the atmospheres at both baseball and women’s basketball, if he wasn’t already, Rodriguez should be more motivated than ever to have the spotlight be on his team.