ESPN Strangely Ranks West Virginia's Offseasons Among the Worst in the Big 12

No love for the Mountaineers heading into the 2025 season.

WVU Athletics Communication

Making changes doesn't always equate to success, but when you're a program like West Virginia which has struggled to compete for much in recent years, it may spark a new mindset within the building.

Many of the players who were recruited by Neal Brown, unfortunately, experienced more losing than they would have liked and are no longer with the program. Some were on their way out regardless, some Rodriguez suggested to look elsewhere, and a handful felt like they weren't suited to fit this new staff in some way, shape, or form.

While the Mountaineers could have possibly taken the next step with many of those players returning, a true culture change would have been delayed. Considering much of the roster was brought to Morgantown by Rodriguez and his staff, the process should be accelerated.

For some odd reason, the overhaul of the roster is not viewed that way, Bill Connelly of ESPN. He ranked WVU's offseason 13th out of 16 Big 12 teams.

What went wrong, per Connelly

"Rodriguez is working on one of the more dramatic roster flips in the Power 4 during his first offseason back at West Virginia. The Mountaineers have had 47 scholarship players hit the portal during this transition. A bunch of proven starters moved on after the firing of former coach Neal Brown, including Rimac (Virginia Tech), running back CJ Donaldson Jr. (Ohio State), receiver Hudson Clement (Illinois) and linebacker Josiah Trotter (Missouri). Rodriguez and his coaches have loaded up with more than 40 newcomers via the portal to replace them, but this is going to be quite a reset for the roster with a ton of new faces filling the two-deep."

What went right, per Connelly

"In this era of college football, it's better to execute a roster makeover of this magnitude before Year 1 rather than after. The new staff has won battles for some coveted players in the portal including Robinson, who earned AAC Defensive Player of the Year last season at UTSA, and brought quality starters such as Vaughn and DB Fred Perry with them from Jacksonville State. They also managed to keep several key players like QB Nicco Marchiol and running back Jahiem White out of the portal. But these Mountaineers are going to look practically brand-new in 2025. If a lot of these waiver wire pickups work out and they can develop good depth, West Virginia could catch up quickly to their Big 12 peers."

My two cents

West Virginia failed to meet expectations under Neal Brown, and part of the reason for that was the lack of in-house development. To truly fix the roster, Brown would have needed to add a bunch of guys out of the transfer portal and buy his staff time to retool certain areas of the roster, particularly on defense. The depth of this newly formed roster still has some concerns, but you could argue that in some spots, they have more capable bodies than they did a year ago. After going 6-7, it's hard to see how revamping the roster is a bad thing.

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