West Virginia football has spent the last seven years in a place nobody around Morgantown wants to get used to. The Mountaineers have finished with a winning record only twice in that span, and their 41-44 mark (.482) is the program’s worst seven-year run since the 1973-79 stretch under Bobby Bowden and Frank Cignetti, when they went 36-42 overall.
That kind of slide would make it easy to stare at the record and see only the mess. But there’s a real case for believing West Virginia is finally moving in the right direction, even in an era when building a roster costs millions and keeping it together is just as hard as assembling it in the first place.
The biggest reason is support at the top. New University President Michael T.
Benson and Athletic Director Wren Baker have made it clear they’re behind the football program, and Baker is looking for ways to bring in more revenue so Rich Rod and his staff have a better shot as the years go on. That matters now more than it used to.
In the old college football model, development and buy-in could carry a team a long way. This version of the sport looks a lot more like the NFL, where the owner, GM, and head coach all need to be aligned.
Benson, Baker, and Rodriguez are on the same page about winning now, but they also understand the resource pool has to keep growing.
West Virginia may not have the kind of deep-pocketed donor base some programs can lean on instantly, but it does have something powerful working in its favor: the state’s passion for football. That energy, along with contributions from Pat McAfee, Ken Kendrick, and a handful of others, gives the program a base to work from. And once the wins start stacking up, the bigger-name donors and boosters are likely to buy in even more.
That’s why this doesn’t have to be a one-year fix. A team usually needs a few signs of life before it can make a real jump, and there’s no reason to panic if West Virginia doesn’t get to 8+ wins this season. In this era, it’s still a multi-year build.
The 2026 season is about laying the groundwork and playing competitive football. That may sound like something last year should have been about too, but when a staff and roster have to be assembled at the same time, it becomes much tougher.
That’s part of why the Mountaineers leaned so heavily on seniors instead of younger players. They needed experience and knew they had missed the first wave of portal talent.
There are still plenty of holes, especially on defense, where the group remains a work in progress. Even so, there are some young players worth watching there, including safety Matt Sieg, defensive back Vincent Smith, linebacker Cam Torbor, and pass rusher Tobi Haastrup.
Offensively, the picture looks more encouraging. West Virginia has a strong starting offensive line, and all of those players could return in 2027 if they choose.
The run game is starting to come together the way Rodriguez wants it, helped by a talented group of freshmen led by Amari Latimer. He looks like the future centerpiece once Cam Cook moves on, though Cook could also be back in 2027.
Quarterback Mike Hawkins is the headliner. The staff believes he can become one of the best players in the conference soon, and he’s not just a short-term fix - he has three years of eligibility left. He’ll also have plenty of targets around him, with everyone except DJ Epps and Jaden Bray set to return after this season, assuming they don’t enter the transfer portal.
That setup brings to mind the 2017 season, when Will Grier arrived, flashed real chemistry with David Sills V, Gary Jennings, and Marcus Simms, and still ended up on a seven-win team. The offense then was different, and Hawkins is a different kind of quarterback than Grier, but the broader idea is similar: some productive pieces now, a stronger foundation later, and a chance to be much better in 2027 when more continuity is in place.
The schedule will test them. November brings a brutal stretch against Texas, Tech, Kansas, Houston, and Utah. Before that, though, West Virginia has a chance to build momentum with a favorable non-conference slate and three home games in its first four league matchups, including games against first-year head coaches Eric Morris at Oklahoma State and Jimmy Rogers at Iowa State.
There’s also a longer view worth keeping in mind. In 2027, the Mountaineers will play all three non-conference games at home and won’t face a single Power Four opponent, with Southern Miss, VMI, and Ohio on the slate.
They’ll also avoid Texas Tech and Utah altogether. The year after that, they open with Tennessee in Charlotte and then get home games against Youngstown State and Akron.
All of it adds up to a path out of the hole West Virginia has been stuck in. It may take proof before everyone fully buys in, but the signs are there, and the belief could start building by the end of September, if not sooner.
In Other News...
Bob Huggins Documentary Premiere Will Stir Mixed Emotions For WVU Fans
A new Bob Huggins documentary is set to give West Virginia fans another look at one of the most complicated figures in program history, with Beyond the Bench - The Bob Huggins Legacy premiering Aug. 7 in Morgantown. The film is built around Huggins coaching career and personal life, and it leans on interviews with former players to revisit the run that made him such a defining presence in Mountaineers basketball.
For WVU fans, the reaction figures to be mixed, which is probably fitting for a coach whose legacy still carries both pride and pain. The documentary also touches on Huggins work in cancer research fundraising, adding another layer to a story that is bigger than wins and losses, even as the premiere itself offers different ways to take it in for those who want to be there. [Read more 🡒]
Four Under-The-Radar Mountaineers Are Pushing WVU's Two-Deep Hard
West Virginias two-deep is still taking shape, but a handful of under-the-radar players are making the staff think twice about how settled those spots really are. The group includes a transfer defensive lineman with a chance to carve out an early role, a linebacker whose versatility could matter if the room gets thin, a safety who brings flexibility, and a junior college slot receiver trying to force his way into the mix.
For a team that will always need dependable depth, especially on defense, those kinds of pushes matter as much as the names already penciled in on the first line. The interesting part now is not just who has the best rsum, but how West Virginia chooses to use each player if their progress keeps trending up, because a few of them are already close enough to the rotation that the margin between backup and contributor may not stay wide for long. [Read more 🡒]