Tonight’s Big 12 spotlight lands squarely on Morgantown, where West Virginia and Oklahoma State meet in a game that could shake up the conference picture right away.
The stakes are simple and loud: the winner goes to 1-0 in league play, jumps into the AP Top 25 rankings, and starts getting talked about as a real contender in the conference.
Bill Connelly’s SP+ model at ESPN sees it coming down to the wire, and it has West Virginia edging Oklahoma State 28-26.
SP+ isn’t just a gut feeling machine. It weighs how strong a team’s offense and defense are, what happens on every snap, and even the tempo both teams play at before coming up with a projected winner and score.
It’s worth remembering that the model also had Virginia beating West Virginia in Charlotte last week, 30-20. That miss is part of the deal with any projection system, even one that is usually among the most respected in the sport.
The big question on the Oklahoma State side is which version shows up. Was the team that looked disjointed in a loss to Tulsa the real one?
Or was it the group that dominated Oregon? The answer may be somewhere in between.
This is still a talented roster that Eric Morris has put together in his first season in Stillwater, but Saturday night brings a different kind of test. It will be their first road game in front of 60,000 fans, and getting the communication right could take a few possessions.
West Virginia, meanwhile, has to back up what it showed a week ago. The Mountaineers ran the ball well even when everyone in the stadium knew it was coming, brought a physical edge, and held up reasonably well on defense. That said, this matchup is a much bigger challenge because of what it asks them to do against one of the nation’s top quarterbacks, Drew Mestemaker.
No matter which side you like, the expectation is for this one to go right down to the finish. In games like that, the team that avoids the costly mistake usually walks out with the win. And if West Virginia gets it done, it would be the program’s first 4-0 start since 2018.
In Other News...
West Virginia Faces A Bigger Defensive Concern Than One Bad Loss
West Virginias loss to Oklahoma State was not the kind you can pin on one bad quarter or one lopsided stat sheet. The Mountaineers actually had some encouraging numbers on defense and put up a strong rushing total, but the film still told a more troubling story. The new defensive scheme was supposed to help unsettle an opponent that likes to push the ball, yet Oklahoma State found too many ways to hit big plays and keep the pressure on.
What made the defeat sting was how often West Virginia let those chances slip through its hands. Missed tackles piled up, explosive plays came too easily, and the staff admitted the game plan simply did not work as intended. For a team trying to build momentum, the bigger concern is not just the result itself, but whether the defensive issues exposed in this one are tied to a deeper problem than a single rough afternoon. [Read more 🡒]
WVU Fans Get A Coal Rush Twist They Werent Expecting
West Virginias October 10 matchup with Arizona now has a start time and a national TV home, and it comes with an early kickoff that should give Mountaineer fans plenty of time to settle in. The Big 12 announced the game will kick at 12 p.m. ET in Morgantown and air on TNT, TruTV and HBO Max, adding another layer of visibility to a nonconference meeting that already carries some curiosity.
Arizona arrives with a little momentum after improving to 3-1 with a win over Washington State, while West Virginia will be trying to build on the familiarity of a series that has been played only once before. The Mountaineers won that 2021 meeting 31-26, and this years game lands in the middle of a busy stretch for the Wildcats, who will turn around and face Cincinnati in a late kickoff the following week. [Read more 🡒]
Rich Rod's Offense Is Giving West Virginia Fans A Real Concern
Rich Rodriguezs latest West Virginia offense is already drawing attention because it looks different from the ones fans remember from his earlier coaching stops. Through four games, the Mountaineers are throwing on just 22% of their offensive snaps, a notably lower rate than Rodriguez has typically used over the course of his career. For a coach long associated with pace and spread principles, that tilt toward the run has become one of the early-season talking points around the program.
The reasons are not hard to see, at least in broad terms. Pass protection has been an issue, and the receiver play has also factored into the equation, making it easier to understand why the offense has leaned so heavily on the ground game. Still, the bigger question hovering over West Virginia is whether a more balanced approach would make the attack harder to defend and more effective overall, even if the current numbers suggest Rodriguez is still searching for the right mix. [Read more 🡒]