West Virginia is going to do a lot of traveling this season.
According to a report by bookies.com, the Mountaineers will be one of the most traveled teams in the Big 12 Conference this season by eclipsing the 10,000-mile mark. The total amount is expected to be 10,416 which is third most in the 14-team league.
The leaders are Central Florida with 14,914 miles and then BYU 12,741 miles. For comparison sake, the teams that will travel the least number of miles are Kansas State at 3,240 and TCU at 3,588.
In fact, the other 11-members of the league will all travel fewer than 7,600 miles on the road this year and half the league will travel fewer than 6,000 miles in total given the proximity of many of the schools.
It’s likely the first time since the Mountaineers joined the Big 12 Conference in 2012 that the program isn’t sitting in the pole position in this race considering the closest school prior to the addition of Cincinnati this past off-season at 306 miles was previously Iowa State at 857 miles. That's still a 13-hour trip by car.
Every other school in the conference is situated at least 900 miles from Morgantown.
That’s a lot of traveling for the program but it does catch a break this fall considering they won’t have road trips to either Lubbock (1,464 miles) or BYU (1,925 miles).
Granted this isn’t nearly the challenge that it would be for basketball or other Olympic sports considering that the Mountaineers will only make a total of six road trips this season and one of those will be to Penn State which is situated only 179 miles away.
The only challenge when it comes to travel for football isn’t necessarily with the game itself, but the following week when the coaches and players come off Saturday night games. With the coaches and team not arriving back in Morgantown until early in the morning following a night game, it affects the prep time and the routine that is typically associated with getting ready for the next opponent.
Still, the miles do add up and West Virginia is certainly going to be traveling a lot of them this fall.
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