A Look at West Virginia’s Historical Rivals

As a follow up to the previous post on WVU’s move to the Big XII, we thought it would be interesting to look back at WVU’s most played rivalries.

November 25, 2011; Morgantown,WV, USA: West Virginia Mountaineers wide receiver Stedman Bailey (right) stiff arms Pittsburgh Panthers defensive back Jarred Holley (18) on his way to scoring a 63 yard touchdown during the second quarter at Milan Puskar Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USPRESSWIRE

Since college football plays a twelve game schedule, we thought it would be interesting to see what a 12 game schedule featuring the Mountaineers 12 most frequently played rivals would look like. For the purposes of this mock schedule, we have randomly generated a schedule based on the total number of match-ups and mimicing this years dates. That schedule looks like this:

• Sept 1 Richmond at West Virginia (WVU leads the all-time series 21-3-1)
• Sept 15 Washington & Lee vs West Virginia, played in Charleston, WV (WVU leads series 27-6-4)
• Sept 22 Maryland at West Virginia (WVU leads series 26-21-2)
• Sept 29 Boston College at West Virginia (WVU leads series 21-11-1)
• Oct 6 West Virginia at Penn State (PSU leads series 48-9-2)
• Oct 13 West Virginia at Temple (WVU leads series 24-12)
• Oct 20 West Virginia Wesleyan at West Virginia (WVU leads series 29-4-1)
• Nov 3 Rutgers at West Virginia (WVU leads series 33-4-2)
• Nov 10 West Virginia at Syracuse (SU leads series 32-27)
• Nov 17 Virginia Tech at West Virginia (WVU leads series 28-22-1)
• Nov 24 West Virginia at Pittsburgh (Pitt leads series 61-40-3)
• Dec 1 Washington & Jefferson at West Virginia (W&J leads series 20-12-2)

Obviously this schedule is not at all feasible. Usually FBS teams only play one game a season against FCS level competition. This schedule would call for the Mountaineers to play only 8 FBS opponents. Richmond is an FCS squad, West Virginia Wesleyan plays Division II football, and both Washington & Jefferson and Washington & Lee play Division III football.

To make this schedule work as a real FBS schedule, you would have to drop WVW, W&J, and W&L. The next three most frequent FBS opponents Virginia (UVA leads the series 12-10-1), East Carolina (WVU leads series 18-3), and Cincinnati (WVU leads series 16-3-1).

So what do you think HailWV Nation? Would you like to see WVU play a schedule like this? Would you add different teams to the schedule? Let us know what you think in the comments section below!