Tough Schedule for WVU? Neal Brown Gives His Opinion

WVU head football coach Neal Brown isn't all too worried about this year's slate. At least not right now.

Schuyler Callihan | Aug 3, 2024

West Virginia University head coach Neal Brown. / Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

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West Virginia Mountaineers

One of the biggest reasons many folks around college football are having a difficult time buying into West Virginia in 2024 is because of the relatively weak schedule they had a year ago.

The thinking is that last year's nine-win total was a product of a favorable slate and when you look back on it, yeah, it wasn't the most challenging by any means. But if you asked around before the season started, you would have got a lot of, "Oh boy, that's a brutal start to the year" talk.

Although it appears that the Mountaineers' strength of schedule will hold up in 2024, you just don't know how things will unfold. Head coach Neal Brown was asked earlier this week if this is the most challenging schedule he's had since taking the job, but he wasn't ready to award that title just yet.

"Schedule is to be determined. Everybody’s whining about our schedule, in hindsight, last year, but if you remember, last year we opened up with Penn State, a top 10 team. We played Pitt, who was on a lot of people's preseason top 25, and then Texas Tech came here, and they were in preseason top 25. And so, the scheduled is to be determined.

"On paper it was really hard, right? And our league is extremely deep. I will say this about our schedule. I like our bye weeks. The travel, we got two really long trips to Lubbock and to Tucson but the Lubbock trip is at the end of the year. Tucson, is we have bye post, so we're protected a little bit on that. So that helps. So, I don't know, to be determined on the schedule. We just got to take it one at a time, but there's some really good teams on there."

If teams are as good as advertised, WVU really does have a brutal five-game stretch to open up Big 12 Conference play, beginning on September 21st against Kansas. That game is followed up by matchups with Oklahoma State, Iowa State, Kansas State, and Arizona - all teams picked to finish ahead of WVU in the preseason poll.

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