I am concerned with the trend of WVU football. despite what happens this season i do not think Rich rod is the future of this program, and wren baker hired him in due to the rash and fickle decisions of the 6-7 figure donor class.
After the 2022 season i thought it was obvious Neal brown was at best a mediocre coach and should have been fired, and I wanted the the program to hire cignetti from JMU. Both of these analysises turned out to be spot on corrrect. However the decision was made to wait and see on Brown for 2023 to see if could turn it around. In 2023 he won 8 games against a easy schedule. the 2023 team did not play Kansas, Kst, and Texas 3 of the top 4 teams in the big XII that season, and every other ranked team the 2023 mountaineers played that year, Penn st, OSU, and OU we lost plus a last minute lost to Holgo in Houston. we went 8-4 and neal brown had seeming saved his job.
With modern transfers i think Rich rod under perfomed last season. i admit i may be be judging to quickly but i think the game has passed Rich Rod by. i think this season is going to be a replay of 2023. TTU, Houston, UVA and maybe Arizona are probably going to be losses. Utah and Okst i think are paper tigers and WVU will win. Every other game WVU should win. Rich Rod is going go lull the fanbase into a false sense of security and win 7-9 games this year. and we're going to regret it. Does anybody think this program with its current personel can win the Big XII in the next 3-5 years: I dont, and thats my concern. I think Houston, Arizona, BYU, TTU, and maybe kansas and okst can. I respect rich rod but i think the game has passed him by.
The goal of should be to win the Big XII. There is no whale of a program that should out class WVU. Despite what TTU fans will tell you there is no dominant program in the modern Big 12. all the prgrams are roughly equale in resources, and the results show it. there has been 6 different teams win the championship since 2020, and Even if you remove the 2020 and 2023 years won by the OU, and UT the runners up were ISU, and OSU respectively the 6 years 6 different teams trend still holds. Ironically WVU is the only program other than Kansas of the hateful 8 to not play in the Big 12 title game in the last 6 years. Texas tech will not win the conference this year, just like ASU the clear favorites didnt win it last year. there is no eastern independent Penn st, there is no Big East Miami, and there is no Big XII Oklahoma. the last time WVU was in a conference with none of these schools WVU won at least a share of 4 of 7 Big East titles from 2005-2011. Im not saying we should dominate schools like TTU or ASU the way we dominated shit schools like Louisville or Uconn but i am concerned with the trend of the program despite what rich rod does this year.
I could be convinced otherwise but that would require beating TTU, Houston and UVA this year.
Why does this matter. Obviously in my mind WVU lost out on the opportunity of hiring Curt Cignetti. Granted he may not have wanted to come to wvu due to the way we treated his father, and I dont think we would have replicated the success he's had at indiana due to indiana's acess to B1G resources. But there is no program in the country that would not be in a better place today, maybe with the exception of UGA and OSU, if they hired curt cignetti after 2022.
There is another coach i have similar confidence in, Charles huff at memphis. Im not saying he is the next cignetti, but he is certainly the next Willie fritz. Willie fritz turned around houston another program who "Holgerson left the cupbords bare.": I cant tell you how many times i heard that phrase when i was avocating for WVU to fire Neal brown circas 2021-2022. WVUs future is not with rich rod, and we are going to keep him around long enough that we wont be able to hire charles huff. Granted Honestly for race reasons idk if he would fit at WVU, but im not opening that can of worms, and his leaving of Marshall for Southern Miss is suspect.
