The Media Won't Pick WVU 14th This Year, But the Chip On the Shoulder Still Exists

WVU offensive lineman Ja'Quay Hubbard has his eyes set on making it to Dallas.

A year ago, WVU head football coach Neal Brown used the Big 12 preseason poll as motivation for his team and they saw it as a major sign of disrespect. Week after week, win after win, they would remind everyone where they were picked to finish in the conference.

They without a doubt exceeded those expectations by finishing the 2023 campaign with a 9-4 record and fourth place finish in the Big 12. So now, what? Where does the motivation come from in 2024?

On Friday, offensive lineman Ja’Quay Hubbard talked about what he is using now that “14” is no longer the rallying cry.

“I haven’t seen many predictions of people picking us first. I’ll say even if they pick us third that’s still a snub in my opinion,” Hubbard said. “Tom Brady and Michael Jordan, they always mention find something that motivates you, find something that gives you that extra edge. Last year, we had a better season but the goal was the Big 12 championship and we didn’t do it. There’s no room for complacency. If you have any mindset that you’ve arrived, you’re wrong. Yeah people aren’t picking us 14th, but they’re not picking us first, so we still got that chip on our shoulder.”

The Big 12 preseason poll won’t come out for another few months, but Hubbard and his fellow teammates probably won’t be satisifed with this year’s prediction either. A lot of folks seem to be really high on conference newcomer Arizona despite the coaching change and Utah is the heavy favorite. If you start throwing in the Oklahoma State’s of the world, the Kansas’s, the Kansas State’s and so on, West Virginia might be picked somewhere in the middle of the league which will not sit well with this group either.

The narrative around the 2023 season is that the Mountaineers benefitted from an easy schedule and that they’ll fall back down to where they were in previous years this fall. It’ll be up to Hubbard and everyone in that building to prove the media wrong once again.