Wealthy Rodriguez’s return to West Virginia has not gone precisely as deliberate or hoped. However the Mountaineers helped ship the primary signature win of his return on Saturday with an enormous highway upset, 45-35, over No. 22-ranked Houston.
It not solely gave Rodriguez his greatest win again at West Virginia, but it surely additionally might have fully modified the course of this yr’s Massive 12 convention.
Maybe the Faculty Soccer Playoff as nicely
Houston’s Massive 12, CFP possibilities appear dashed
After scoring an enormous upset win at Arizona State per week in the past, Houston appeared to have positioned itself within the driver’s seat for a possible spot within the Massive 12 championship recreation. Despite the fact that the Cougars nonetheless trailed three groups within the convention standings — Cincinnati, BYU and Texas Tech — they might solely have to climb over two of them to get a shot.
And with Cincinnati and BYU nonetheless enjoying one another, and with Texas Tech nonetheless having to play BYU, there was a very good likelihood they had been going to get the assistance wanted.
Add in the truth that Houston had what appeared to be the simplest remaining schedule of all of these groups, and you may simply see a path.
That path, nonetheless, took a significant hit on Saturday as a consequence of their incapacity to cease West Virginia’s working recreation.
The Mountaineers gashed Houston for 246 yards, whereas the Cougars additionally turned the ball over 4 instances on offense whereas creating zero takeaways on protection.
Whereas that’s disappointing for the way in which this season began for Houston, this nonetheless has an opportunity to be a spectacular yr for this system and head coach Willie Fritz. The Cougars entered the yr coming off back-to-back 4-8 seasons and had been not likely thought of to be preseason contenders within the convention.
Even with Saturday’s defeat, they’re nonetheless ready to probably win 10 regular-season video games for simply the second time up to now decade.
