West Virginia Mountaineers Preview

When looking at what teams have the best chance to make it to the BCS National Championship game in January, no team has a better chance than the West Virginia Mountaineers. Simply put, it would almost be a shock if West Virginia didn’t go undefeated and earn a berth in the championship game thanks to some outstanding talents at key positions and a cake schedule that should present few, if any, problems.

First of all, West Virginia plays in the Big East, a conference that has performed extremely poorly in recent years thanks to the departure of their only big name teams. The Big East has plummeted in terms of quality teams in the conference, and what this means is any quality team can have an inside track to a BCS game thanks to the automatic bid for the conference champion. Featuring teams such as Mississippi State, Cincinnati, and Connecticut, the Big East presents almost no problems for West Virginia this year. In fact, barring a shocking upset, the only team that could challenge West Virginia in the Big East would be Louisville and their stars Brian Brohm along with their own version of Bush at running back (not related to Reggie, of course).

Their out of conference schedule is even weaker, featuring match-ups against East Carolina, Maryland, Marshall, and D-IAA team Buffalo. Any loss here would be a huge upset and would be very disappointing for the the West Virginia Mountaineers squad.

What West Virginia hopes will carry them through the weak Big East and basically pathetic non conference schedule is the powerful offense that is returning thanks to breakout sophomore stars Pat White, a dual threat QB, and Steve Slaton, their star running back. These two, in addition to all three starting receivers and their three interior offensive linemen, combine to form a deadly West Virginia offense.

The only problem that might arise for the West Virginia Mountaineers is a defense that returns only five starters. If West Virginia does hit a road block along the way, the only conceivable way it could occur is thanks to their young and inexperienced defense that may not be able to properly hold opponents out of the endzone this year. Will this defensive breakdown occur? Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.