ESPN's Greg McElroy Considers WVU a 'Tier 3' Big 12 Team

West Virginia has the talent to make some noise, but the schedule could prevent them from doing so.

Ben Queen-USA TODAY Sports

There seems to be a major hesitation around college football when it comes to putting the West Virginia Mountaineers among the top teams in the Big 12 Conference. They return so much talent from a nine-win team, but the difficulty of the schedule is what appears to be holding everyone back, including Greg McElroy of ESPN.

McElroy recently broke down the Big 12 Conference into tiers on his podcast, Always College Football. West Virginia checks in as the middle team in the third tier, sandwiched by Arizona and UCF.

“They are a spoiler, massive rollercoaster last year. Nine wins, amazing. Bowl wins, incredible. Great wins over the newcomers to the Big 12, but also losing to former head coach Dana Holgorsen on a Hail Mary. Losing to Oklahoma State and allowing nearly 300 yards rushing, so there were some ups and downs but for all intents and purposes it was a really good year for Neal Brown, partly because he found a three-headed monster offensively. You look at them defensively, they lost a bunch of guys, a handful went pro, a handful transferred out to become starters at other places. They went and added guys from the FCS. They added guys from G55. But either way, it’s not ideal with the amount of turnover that they had defensively. The schedule is also challenging, one of the toughest in the Big 12. I love the team, but the schedule is too tough which is why I put them in this spoiler category right now.”

McElroy's Big 12 Tiers

Tier 1 (Championship Contenders): None.
Tier 2 (CFP Contenders): Utah, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Kansas.
Tier 3 (Spoilers): Arizona, West Virginia, UCF.
Tier 4 (Bowl Bound): Iowa State, TCU, Texas Tech, Colorado.
Tier 5 (Work in Progress): BYU, Houston, Arizona State, Baylor, Cincinnati.

I'll be honest, I don't think putting WVU in the third tier is all that bad. The daunting schedule is something that should be taken into consideration, especially when you look at how some teams ahead of them have a much easier path. That being said, West Virginia's schedule looked difficult heading into 2023, only for it to be one of the easier slates in recent memory for the Mountaineers.

Probably the best way to go about tiering the Big 12, or any conference of that matter, is based off overall talent. No one can predict what's actually going to happen when it's the first week of August. From a talent standpoint, I would put West Virginia ahead of Kansas and possibly Kansas State as well, but still behind Arizona.

Of course, all of this preseason chatter could end up being completely wrong, as it was last year with West Virginia finishing fourth in the league after being picked 14th. The key for the Mountaineers will be to take care of business at home and try to steal one of the road games against Oklahoma State or Arizona. If they accomplish that, they'll be right in the thick of the Big 12 title race.

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