To play, or not to play: should West Virginia, Marshall play a home-and-home football series?

WHY THE SERIES SHOULD NOT BE PLAYED

As mentioned earlier, the structure of today's super-conference and the resulting schedule leaves precious few opportunities for out-of-conference scheduling. West Virginia certainly seems to value and priortize rivalries with programs such as Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, and Maryland, who all compete in different conferences as well. The ability to prioritize those rivalries while also prioritizing a rivalry such as Marshall which many fans on both sides are less attached could prove too difficult.

Another reason is that playing a series that has proved uncompetitive during it's most recent stretch as well as historically could be unbeneficial to both programs. Marshall could easily prioritize regional out-of-conference rivalries with Ohio and East Carolina that would allow them more opportunities at victory.

Meanwhile, WVU could prioritize the security of filling the slot Marshall would fill with an FCS opponent that will always provide an additional home game and an easier win. WVU benefits just as much if not more with the FCS slot than they do with a Marshall rivalry. Marshall benefits from having that slot open for smaller teams as well. Many fans -- and likely folks in both athletic departments -- will be hard to convince of the benefit of making it a regular series.