With the season approaching, we’ve been reviewing the schedule for each Big 12 team.
We finish off the series with West Virginia:
Nonconference opponents (with 2015 record)
Sept. 3: Missouri (5-7)
Sept. 10: Youngstown State (5-6)
Sept. 24: BYU (9-4)
Big 12 home games
Oct. 1: Kansas State
Oct. 22: TCU
Nov. 5: Kansas
Nov. 19: Oklahoma
Dec. 3: Baylor
Big 12 road games
Oct. 15: at Texas Tech
Oct. 29: at Oklahoma State
Nov. 12: at Texas
Nov. 26: at Iowa State
Gut-check time: The Mountaineers have yet to defeat Oklahoma since joining the Big 12. But if West Virginia is going to become any serious threat in the Big 12, beating Oklahoma is exactly what the Mountaineers are going to have to do. West Virginia has hung tough with the Sooners in its Big 12 era, but coming up with the key plays in crunch time has been elusive.
Trap game: Sandwiched between home showdowns with Oklahoma and Baylor lies a road trip to Ames, Iowa, in late November. Emotionally, this could be a tough ask of the Mountaineers, in the freezing cold against a capable Iowa State team that has been tough at home in recent years.
Snoozer: Just before taking on Texas and Oklahoma, West Virginia gets Kansas at home. The Jayhawks knocked off the Mountaineers in Lawrence three years ago. The chances of that happening again this time in Morgantown are, well, unlikely.
Final analysis: By any measure, West Virginia has one of the toughest schedules in the country, including one of the nation's tougher nonconference slates. Then again, a 4-0 start isn't out of the question, either, especially considering that West Virginia will be playing three of those games at home to go along with a neutral-site tilt against BYU in nearby Maryland. If the Mountaineers get rolling again early, they could become a factor. Last year, four games against the Big 12's top four teams in October derailed West Virginia's hot start. This time around, the league schedule is far more manageable, with five conference games in Morgantown, including stalwarts TCU, Oklahoma and Baylor.
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