WVSports.com continues with our popular feature: The 3-2-1. We'll break down three things we learned that week, two questions we have and give one prediction.
Here is the next installment of the 3-2-1 looking at the West Virginia football program, the latest on basketball and what’s happening in recruiting.
3 things I learned:
1–West Virginia's baseball season ends. The Mountaineers put together an impressive campaign with the single most wins in program history and an outright Big 12 title. That was only further solidified by sweeping the Clemson regional as the two seed. But the ride had to eventually end and that came in the Super Regional against LSU.
It was always going to be a tough nut to crack on the road against the No. 6 Tigers with their stellar pitching and impressive offense. But the Mountaineers didn't help themselves in the two games with some costly errors and pitching troubles.
West Virginia simply didn't have their best against the Tigers, even though the offense produced for stretches in both of the games against some elite starting pitching. It's the second straight year that the Mountaineers have advanced to the Super Regionals but have fallen short of making it to Omaha.
Steve Sabins and the players are to be commended for what they did to put this team in position to be where they were at the end of the year but with a season like this it will only to increase the expectations around the program.
The Mountaineers have come a long way first under Randy Mazey and now continuing that with Sabins at the helm but with success comes expectations and it's certainly higher on the baseball diamond than it's been since I've been on the beat.
There's no shame in losing in the Super Regionals to a team the caliber of LSU and the program certainly met the expectations set forth at the beginning of the year. But now the quest is to try to elevate the program even further.
2–The House Settlement has been approved. At last, the House Settlement was approved by judge Claudia Wilken ushering in a new era in college athletics. The much-discussed settlement will bring about sweeping changes including 20 billion+ in revenue sharing from the schools over 10-years. That starts with a first-year cap $20.5M per school with escalators to as high as $33M by 2035.
Each school is now permitted, but not required, to participate in revenue sharing. It allows the schools to determine how to distribute the funding but the majority of power schools are expected to almost 90-percent to football and basketball.
That would be around $13-15 million for football and $2-4 million for men's basketball.
It will essentially allow schools to pay their players directly while altering roster limits and other aspects of the college game. In football, the roster size will dip down to 105 total but that won't take affect until those currently on teams or have been cut can be grandfathered in after some back-and-forth. That also includes all recruits who enrolled on the promise of a roster spot providing some middle ground.
As Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports reports there will be a new enforcement entity referred to as the College Sports Commission, an LLC operated mostly by the power leagues, immediately takes effect with Wilken’s approval of the agreement.
"It means that any new contract struck between an athlete and a third-party entity, such a business, brand, booster or collective, is now subject to the new Deloitte-run NIL clearinghouse. The clearinghouse, dubbed "NIL Go," is charged with evaluating NIL deals between athletes and third parties to determine their legitimacy," Dellenger wrote.
It is expected to go into effect July 1 and West Virginia has been preparing for this as Athletic Director Wren Baker has made it clear that the Mountaineers are committed to competing in the new college landscape.
3–Football season ticket sales ahead of pace. West Virginia was at 28,054 in season ticket sales for the 2025-26 season as of June 5, which is more than where those totals were last season according to Matt Wells, who serves as the Deputy Athletics Director for External Affairs.
