Things did not go well for Rich Rodriguez and the West Virginia Mountaineers last season. Rodriguez is arguably the greatest coach in program history due to his accomplishments during his first tenure in Morgantown, but in his first year back, his team finished with just four wins.
But Rodriguez put the work in this offseason to build a roster and coaching staff he feels confident in, and expectations are a bit higher among the fan base – and seemingly Rodriguez himself. So could a significant turnaround be in the works for WVU football during the 2026 season?
Top Big 12 turnaround incoming for Rich Rodriguez?
Recently, the Cover 3 Podcast from CBS Sports laid out teams from each league they think they have the biggest turnarounds from last season to this season, with the target goal for each team set at doubling their win totals from the 2025 season.
Big 12 programs mentioned included Kansas State, Oklahoma State, UCF, and West Virginia – for the Mountaineers, that would mean making it to eight wins this season. The good news started with the low-end estimate by host Chip Patterson sending the team bowling.
"I think West Virginia team is a six-win team minimum – I don't know if I'm ready to take them to eight.," Patterson said. "Because if you want to take them to seven or eight wins, if you want it to get to the point where Rich Rodriguez has really improved this thing by four wins or more after 4-8, you're going to need some upsets along the way."
The relatively easy start to the schedule should play in West Virginia's favor – there are some coin flip games, as often happens in the Big 12, but there are no games on the first half of the schedule where the Mountaineers should enter as significant underdogs. And as CBS Sports analyst Bud Elliott pointed out, that means WVU could be over halfway to the 8-win mark with plenty of games to play.
"They could start 5-2," Elliott said. "They could also start 3-4, but they could start 5-2. I think Iowa State is the worst team in the Power 4. You get Virginia...you get Oklahoma State at home, you get Arizona at home, your first [road game] is at Iowa State, and then you host Cincinnati...I could see eight if they really play well."
The path to an 8-win season for the West Virginia Mountaineers
Things have to start strong – Rodriguez and the Mountaineers can't afford to slip up against Coastal Carolina like they did with Ohio last season. To reach eight wins, West Virginia will want to get off to a 2-0 start.
The next stretch of six games before the bye week will be crucial. Virginia was a strong team last season but aren't known for their consistency. Oklahoma State is coming off a tough season and has a new staff and rebuilt roster, but they bring in the head coach and core roster from a successful North Texas team, including an NFL-caliber quarterback
Iowa State lost their head coach this offseason and had to make a late hire and returns virtually no significant experience. Arizona had a sneakily stout season last year, while Cincinnati started strong before faltering – and then lost their starting quarterback to the portal (which might be a blessing in disguise).
TCU is always a threat, but barely escaped with a win in Morgantown last year, and also lost their quarterback. In total, these teams return just one of their starting signal callers, and two welcome new head coaches as well. Three of the games are at home, a fourth is at a neutral site easily accessible to the fan base, and one of the road games comes against the most vulnerable opponent.
There is a world in which West Virginia opens this stretch of football 8-0. There is also a world in which they need to win three of their last four just to go bowling after the bye week. Feasibly, the Mountaineers would likely be ecstatic with a 6-2 start, racking up four wins in their first six Power 5 games. And they really need to hit that target if they want to win eight games.
Houston, Kansas, Texas Tech, and Utah dot the final stretch of the schedule, and there is a real possibility that three of those teams end up as the Top 3 teams in the league. And while Kansas could be an easy win based on last season's finish, they did wallop West Virginia last season – and if the return of Andy Kotelnicki rekindles some magic, who knows what might happen?
That means those remaining couple of wins WVU will need will be hard to come by in the last weeks of the campaign, so they'll want to get the job done early. And while the focus of the podcast seemed to be an 8-win regular season, if the Mountaineers can pull off seven wins plus a bowl victory, we're sure fans would be happy. But regardless, the first 8-game stretch of the schedule will be crucial.
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