WVU football's Week 4 showdown with Kansas is still underway as of the time this article will be published, but a WVU loss seems all but a forgone conclusion at this point. And while the play on the gridiron has been ugly for the Mountaineers, the Jayhawks were able to add a bit of an extra insult to their dominant performance as a former WVU starter has embarrassed the Mountaineers on multiple plays.
Trey Lathan transferred to Kansas after the Mountaineers fired Neal Brown last season, but started for the West Virginia in 2024. Entering Saturday's game, he led Kansas in tackles – and against his old team, he demonstrated why first-year Mountaineers' coach Rich Rodriguez should have worked harder to retain him during the transition between coaches.
Lathan has already recorded three tackles against WVU as of the start of the final period of play, and one of those happened to come on an absolutely massive sack. On the first drive of the third quarter, right guard Kimo Maka'neole completely missed a blitzing Lathan on a drop back that saw quarterback Nicco Marchiol get absolutely smashed in the backfield for an eight-yard loss.
Then, just a little bit later in the game, Lathan perfectly read his former quarterback in pass coverage to pull off a huge interception which he then returned for 32 yards, prompting comments from the FS1 commentary team about how Lathan likely recognized where Marchiol was going after seeing it in practice for multiple years.
Trey Lathan of all possible players picking off Nicco Marchiol is about as low as we can get in this game, right? #HailWV
— Joe Smith (@joesmithwrites) September 21, 2025
It doesn't get much more cringe-inducing for WVU fans to see a player who decided to skip town on their new coach have such a strong game against him just four games into the new season, and the interception leaves a particularly poor taste in the mouths of WVU fans who remember Lathan as a notoriously bad defender in pass coverage.
Any good feelings remaining from The Backyard Brawl win over Pitt in Week 3 have seemed to dissipate over the course of a few hours as the Jayhawks have dominated the Mountaineers in every facet of the game. And while Rodriguez might not even realize the implications fully for fans who struggled through recent seasons, but seeing Lathan look so dominant against a team which was supposed to demonstrate a new and improved 'hard edge' mentality will certainly not buy him any extra good will in the rebuilding process.