Report: WVU Football Buys Out of 2026 Game at East Carolina

WVU football has reportedly bought its way out of a 2026 scheduled road game at East Carolina, Mike Casazza of EerSports.com reported Tuesday morning.

The game was the second half of a home-and-home series that was first played in Morgantown in 2016. Getting out of the contract will cost the WVU athletic department $300,000.

The game in Greenville, NC was scheduled for Sept. 19 and would have been the Mountaineers’ third game of the season following home games against Alabama (Sept. 5) and UT Martin Sept. 12).

West Virginia will play seven home games in 2026. In addition to Alabama and UT Martin, the Big 12 scheduling matrix has the Mountaineers set to host Arizona, Houston, Oklahoma State, Kansas and Cincinnati. WVU will travel to Utah, Texas Tech, TCU and Iowa State.

Absent from the 2026 schedule is the Backyard Brawl. The renewed series between bitter rivals is off the books after next season and is not set to be played against until 2028. The game in 2025 is scheduled to be played in Morgantown, meaning a meeting in Pittsburgh in 2026 would follow the series’s current home-and-away pattern.

In September, WVU coach Neal Brown hinted the program was working to alter its future schedules to accommodate further meetings with the Panthers.

“We need to get our schedule fixed,” Brown said. “We’re in the process of doing that. (The Backyard Brawl is) a game that needs to be played. We got Alabama, that ain’t fixed.”

The Alabama game would be far costlier to get out of at $2 million, should the athletic department pursue that path. The 2026 game in Morgantown is the first of a quick home-and-home series that would conclude with a trip to Tuscaloosa in 2027.

WVU has played 11 regular-season games against power conference opponents in every year of Brown’s tenure. That is set to change next year as WVU has Robert Morris and Ohio on its 2025 schedule. That would have continued in 2026 with ECU and UT Martin although that now depends on what game replaces East Carolina.

For a related story, Jeff Koonz views his interim defensive coordinator role with WVU football as an obligation, not a promotion.