West Virginia is in a bye week sitting at 1-0 in the Big 12 Conference.
It was a close, hard-fought win where the Mountaineers railed from 28-17 down with just 5:39 remaining to beat Kansas 32-28 in the league opener.
It was the exact type of game that West Virginia head coach Neal Brown has discussed countless times when the league is mentioned as it’s likely going to feature a lot of tight contests that are decided in the final minutes given the makeup of the conference.
Out of the six Big 12 matchups in week 4 including the West Virginia win, a total of four of them were within one possession.
“That’s the way it’s going to be,” Brown said.
The biggest reason for that is the fact that the league features good coaching and there’s not much of a talent disparity between the various teams in the conference from one through 16. That means things boil down to final possessions between the teams.
“Games are going to come down to the end and a lot of times it comes down to special teams,” Brown said. “It’s really not who makes the big play, it’s really who doesn’t have the big negative.”
Turnover margin and home-field advantage matter in the Big 12, but in most instances it comes down to which team is able to effectively run the football the best. That isn’t always the case such as in that win over Kansas but over time it has proven to be a factor across the league as a whole.
The Mountaineers still have eight games remaining in the 2024 season in the league which certainly presents opportunities if that theory plays out, but there are also pitfalls. And West Virginia is working to ensure that they end up on the positive side of those tightly contested battles.
“The good thing is you have an opportunity to win every game. The bad news is you have an opportunity to lose every game,” Brown said.
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