Sunday Morning Thoughts: The Turnaround at West Virginia Is Starting to Get Real

Hopping on the West Virginia bandwagon yet? Sure, the team is 4-6, but the Mountaineers are well on their way to getting this thing turned under Rich Rodriguez, playing the brand of football that he envisioned from day one.

Like yesterday, it's not always going to be pretty. There will be games where your quarterback doesn't have his best stuff, your run game can't get going, and you just have to fight, scrap, and claw your way to victory. That's what the Mountaineers had to do on Saturday against Colorado, and although it wasn't as clean a game as the one they played in Houston, the physicality and effort were to the level of Rodriguez's liking.

I pointed this out on the Mountaineer Postgame Show last night, and I think some people misunderstood what I was trying to say, but last night's win was, in a certain way, more impressive than last week's.

Allow me to explain.

Beating a then 7-1 ranked team on the road is, by almost every definition, more impressive than beating a three-win team at home. It was an improbable win as opposed to yesterday's game, where WVU was a 6.5-point favorite. I get that.

My point is that for a team that has struggled to win games this season, they were able to handle the success in what could have very easily been a flat spot for them. Off a big road win, at home where things are more relaxed, facing a three-win team in an early kick. West Virginia has no reason to overlook anyone with the record that's attached to its name, but the logic could have been, "Oh, Colorado has been blown out two weeks in a row, and we just knocked off a ranked team. Easy dub." But it wasn't.

The last time West Virginia won a game, they proceeded to lose five straight games, one of which was to a team that isn't much better than Colorado in UCF. Nothing is a given with this group, so the fact that they were able to lead this game wire-to-wire despite losing the turnover battle shows growth. It also further proves that last week's win over Houston wasn't a fluke; they are gradually taking steps to where they ultimately want to be.

Beating Colorado is not going to make national news, nor should it. Beating Colorado is also not something that's going to have everyone saying, "Oh look, Rich Rod has WVU humming again."

It is, however, a sign that this group can handle success and overcome some adversity in a game where things weren't pretty. This is three straight weeks of solid football, and that is what should be turning heads. It's not that you played TCU tough and then caught Houston in a bad spot. This team looks much different with Scotty Fox running the offense, and it's only going to improve over time.

Regardless of what happens in these final two weeks of the season, no one is going to be happy with 6 or perhaps more losses. That being said, it's year one. It's the starting point, and you could say that last week's win in Houston was the launching point for this program. That's when the mood and feeling around Mountaineer football changed, and if they can play competitive football against Arizona State and Texas Tech, folks will be feeling much better about 2026 than they did a month ago.

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