WVU to Face Four of the Top Five Most Experienced Teams in the Country in 2026

The Mountaineers will see some of the most seasoned teams in all of college football.

WVU Athletics Communications

Experience is something every team is searching for in this new era of college sports. Get old, stay old is the phrase you'll hear from coaches all around the country.

Some of the opponents that the West Virginia Mountaineers have on their schedule in 2026 certainly made sure they had loads of experience, as four of the five most seasoned teams in the nation are on WVU's slate.

Data via CBS Sports (total snaps)

No. 1 Virginia (39,158)
No. 2 Texas Tech (35,838)
No. 3 Oklahoma State (34,621)
No. 5 Houston (32,439)

The others on the schedule + where West Virginia ranks

No. 25 Kansas (26,341)
No. 34 Arizona (25,116)
No. 37 West Virginia (24,620)
No. 49 TCU (21,999)
No. 62 Cincinnati (20,490)
No. 67 Utah (19,953)
No. 78 Iowa State (17,513)
No. 108 Coastal Carolina (12,392)

Experience is nice to have, but it isn't necessarily what it used to be.

For starters, you have guys bouncing all over the place, having to learn new schemes and playbooks, sometimes multiple times throughout their career. Just because a player has, say, 700 snaps doesn't mean it will translate to success on the field if he has zero in your system. If you're a team that won two or three games and has a bulk of those snaps coming back, that's not always great either. And the new thing of taking 70+ guys, essentially flipping the entire roster, may not work either, as we witnessed last year in Morgantown.

Oklahoma State, for example, is everyone's preseason darling in the Big 12 because new head coach Eric Morris brought over his quarterback/running back duo from North Texas, Drew Mestemaker and Caleb Hawkins, along with several others from Denton. While those guys have experience in the system, they don't have experience in this league. Trying to measure the value of experience in today's game is almost impossible.

For West Virginia, the one area where the experience is going to really pay off is along the offensive line. Last year, they were one of the most inexperienced groups, and it showed. Heading into 2026, the newly revamped room has logged the 7th-most snaps, trailing only South Carolina, Nebraska, Pitt, Cal, Oklahoma State, and Indiana.

Having that seasoned offensive line with Rick Trickett leading the room will lead to a much more efficient offense, particularly in the ground game, which is typically the bread and butter of Rich Rod's teams. Things won't look completely disjointed as they did a year ago.