Brown ready for future schedules at West Virginia
Neal Brown doesn’t envy the Big 12 Conference schedule makers.
With a new 16-team edition of the league in 2024, there was little chance that each team would come off the four-year matrix feeling that their schedule would be perfect.
That is certainly not the case with the Mountaineers as Brown would have liked to see Cincinnati and UCF, the only other teams located in the Eastern Time Zone, as annual opponents. Instead, West Virginia will only play those two teams three out of the four seasons within the scheduling matrix.
“We should play UCF and Cincinnati every year. They’re on the East Coast. I’m sure there are reasons why you don’t do a pod system because who is the fourth member of the East Coast?” Brown asked.
Brown openly admitted that he wasn’t privy to the information that came with compiling the schedules, which makes it difficult to judge how they eventually turned out. It’s also simply hard to get a league with that many teams condensed into something that makes every team satisfied.
The way the schedule was designed was to have each team have at least a home-and-home with the 15 other members of the league, while some teams will play more during that period. There were four protected rivalries that will play every season, but the Mountaineers were not included in that.
West Virginia will play Cincinnati, UCF, Oklahoma State, Iowa State, Kansas and Texas Tech three times during that four-year period with the other nine teams just twice.
“I wish it was more from a regional standpoint. We play Texas Tech the same number of times we play Cincinnati,” Brown said.
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The Mountaineers 2024 schedule includes home games against Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and UCF with road contests at Arizona, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Cincinnati.
The 2025 schedule consists of home contests against Utah, Colorado, TCU and Texas Tech along with road trips to UCF, Kansas, Houston, Arizona State and BYU. The last two means that West Virginia must travel westward twice in the same season which could present challenges.
“That’s a lot of travel,” Brown said.
During the 2026 season, West Virginia will play host to Cincinnati, Oklahoma State, Arizona, Houston and Kansas along with road trips to Utah, Texas Tech, Iowa State and TCU.
The final year of the matrix will include league home games with UCF, Iowa State, BYU and Arizona State to go with road trips to Cincinnati, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Baylor and Colorado.
Brown admitted that he doesn’t believe that just because teams are in the same conference they need to play each other regularly, but the schedule is the schedule, and he will look forward to the games.
“You’re not going to please everybody,” Brown admitted.
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