There's always a lot of debate regarding who your favorite college football team should schedule. But there are limited opening on the non-conference slate every year, making it hard to keep everyone happy. However, there are some teams that no fans want to see their team play, and athletic directors would do good just to leave those opponents off the schedule. Here are three such teams for the Mountaineers.
Marshall Thundering Herd
West Virginia fans love nothing more than to "little brother" the Herd. And while there's a bit more of an argument to be made for games to be played between the state's two Division 1 schools in basketball and baseball, you won't find many fans who want to schedule a football series with Marshall.
One reason is because the expectation of a home-and-home series is commonly brought up on Marshall's end when the conversation arises, and the Mountaineers are just not likely going to be willing to forgo one of their valuable non-conference home games against FCS and Group of 6 opponents to travel to Huntington.
They did so last year with Ohio, but it was a 2-for-1 deal that will result in the Bobcats making two future trips to Morgantown. And that trip would leave the Mountaineers snake bitten as they fell to a MAC opponent in Week 2, setting an unfortunate tone for the season.
The series also just isn't competitive, with WVU holding a definitive 12-0 advantage on the gridiron over the Thundering Herd. And on the flip side, if Marshall does make the series competitive, the Mountaineers certainly don't want to be seen as a program who can't beat the in-state rival who is often perceived as a 'lower-tier' program. It's a lose-lose situation for West Virginia.
Penn State Nittany Lions
Penn State is historically a major regional rival for the Mountaineers, but that rivalry mostly died off in the early 1990's, except for a two-game series in recent seasons.
One big reason that fans won't want to see Penn State on the schedule again any time soon is due to the fact that the Nittany Lions are a program with a much stronger history a larger resource pool than the Mountaineers, which means WVU is often outmatched by Penn State.
Another reason to this is that there is limited room on the schedule for Power 4 opponents in non-conference play. The Mountaineers have made the mistake in recent years of scheduling 11 Power 4 opponents, and it ended up doing them more harm than good.
And quite frankly, there are rivalries that have deeper history for WVU, or that are more intense, that should take precedence over the Penn State rivalry – such as the Backyard Brawl (Pitt), Battle for the Black Diamond Trophy (Virginia Tech), and Battle for the Schwartzwalder Trophy (Syracuse).
North Texas Mean Green
It's hard to think of too many teams that West Virginia fans would hate to play, but to get to a well-round three teams here, we're going to highlight North Texas.
Nothing about WVU not wanting to see the Mean Green on the schedule has to do with some deep-seated hatred of the school or fan base, nor is it because they're consistently a Group of 6 team that punches above their weight class. It has to do with their new head coach.
Neal Brown took over the helm of the North Texas program this offseason, landing his first job since he was fired by the Mountaineers in 2024. While some former WVU coaches (we're looking at you, Dana Holgorsen) are easy to root against, Brown was always a classy man who just didn't seem to have what was needed to meet expectations for his job.
Because of that, and because of his seemingly unending gratitude toward West Virginia fans and his continued support of the school's athletic teams, Brown is still in many fans good graces, and they wouldn't want to have to deal with cheering for Brown's downfall against his old team.
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