WVU Fans Predict Where the Mountaineers Will Finish in the Big 12 Standings

For this week's West Virginia On SI fan poll on X, we asked where you expect the Mountaineers to finish in the Big 12 Conference standings this season. The results are in, and I've got to be honest, I'm a little surprised at the level of optimism some of you who voted have.

1-4: 29.8%

A top-four finish would be a MASSIVE improvement from last year. I hate putting a ceiling on a team because in this day and age, there's no way of telling how good a team can be in the preseason. So much roster movement, so many unknowns, and that goes for every team in the league. That said, WVU hasn't finished in the top four of the Big 12 since 2018. They were in a four-way tie in 2023, but were behind Iowa State and Kansas State due to tiebreakers. I like the potential of this group, but it's a young squad. Expecting a top-four finish is pretty bold for a team with 80+ newcomers.

5-8: 51.6%

This is a more reasonable expectation, especially if you believe they will take care of business in the first half of the schedule, as in beating Oklahoma State and Iowa State and earning at least a split of the two-game homestand against Arizona and Cincinnati. This is where we will begin to see a cluster of teams finish with the same record, so taking the head-to-head against Cincinnati, TCU, and Houston could be the difference in finishing in this tier or one lower.

9-12: 16.8%

Personally, I see the Mountaineers finishing 8th or 9th, and I'm assuming most of you who picked this tier are thinking the same. There is nothing wrong with finishing in the middle of the pack in year two. And I don't want to hear about that as "settling for mediocrity." Folks, there is a difference between being where you finish in year two and continuing to be where you finish in year six. This isn't where they are going to be for the rest of time. Rich Rod has been successful just about everywhere he's gone.

13-16: 1.9%

Yeah, I don't see this happening whatsoever. The voters here are either reverse jinxing or are among the group of people who want Rich Rod to fail, which doesn't really make sense because if he fails, the program fails. But there are those people out there.

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