WVU Football Gets Ranked? West Virginia Placed Firmly Within Bottom 25

Stop the presses! WVU football is ranked once again. Confused? Well, don’t be. The ranking the Mountaineers earned is nothing to brag about.

West Virginia is currently ranked firmly within CBS Sports’ first Bottom 25 ballot of the season. Neal Brown’s team is following up a 38-15 loss to Penn State, granted a highly ranked in the rankings that aren’t embarrassing, with the number 16 spot in the Bottom 25.

Other notable major conference programs floundering as much as WVU that also received the Bottom 25 honor include Indiana, Virginia and Northwestern, who doesn’t seem to carrying any steam from 2022 with them to 2023.

Below is what CBS Sports’ David Cobb had to say about why West Virginia deserves to be in the Bottom 25.

“The Mountaineers refused to take downfield shots in their 38-15 Week 1 loss at Penn State. If some perimeter playmakers don’t emerge for WVU, this team could flirt with Bottom 25 status all year, which is the last thing embattled coach Neal Brown needs.” 

Obviously, it’s probably not fair to fully judge how good or bad WVU will be this season, regardless of what happened last year, based on one game against the number seven team in the country, but here we are. A win against FCS Duquesne isn’t going to prove anything to anyone either. And yes, that brings us to a lot of the season hanging the outcome of the Backyard Brawl as it shifts to Morgantown.

ESPN FPI Guarantees Victory for WVU Football Against Duquesne

But it’s pretty fair to feel even seeing WVU football on a Bottom 25 is embarrassing for a program with as much history and past success as West Virginia. Can WVU be like Colorado and go from the Bottom 25 to the actual top 25 a year later?

Eh, time will tell. It only took the Buffaloes revamping the entire structure of the program, bringing in Deion Sanders of all coaches and scrapping out almost an entire roster for new plays in one offseason to make that turn around a reality.