Between The Eers: Why Not West Virginia?
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 Good Tuesday morning everyone, Skylar Callen here,
00:12 another episode of Between the Ears.
00:14 Thank you guys for tuning in.
00:16 And I've gotta admit, I've gotta get this off my chest.
00:20 I've been getting all of these comments on Facebook,
00:25 or maybe not necessarily on our articles,
00:29 but I've seen it all over the place.
00:31 And not really on any particular topic,
00:35 just random comments on articles about the football team,
00:39 or even the basketball team,
00:41 and just the feeling that West Virginia
00:46 could never win a national championship.
00:49 They could never be Big 12 champions.
00:52 They could never get to a New York Six Bowl and win one.
00:55 And they could never get to the college football playoff,
00:58 or it'll be another 50 years
01:00 before they get back to the Final Four.
01:03 And here's my thing.
01:06 Although I understand the odds of those things happening
01:11 are very not in West Virginia's favor,
01:15 why not West Virginia?
01:17 And maybe this is just me,
01:19 someone from West Virginia,
01:22 having grown up in West Virginia,
01:24 lived the first 18 years of my life in West Virginia.
01:28 I'm somebody that when you tell me I can't do something,
01:32 I'm bound and determined as all hell to prove you wrong.
01:38 And that kind of stuff pisses me off.
01:43 And again, that's probably the West Virginian enemy
01:46 because we're always told that we can't do anything,
01:51 we're never amount to anything,
01:52 and that's just kind of the reality of the situation.
01:56 But seriously though, think about it for just a second,
02:01 football specifically, why not West Virginia?
02:04 Why can't West Virginia win the Big 12?
02:07 Why can't they go to the college football playoff?
02:10 It's not like they've never sniffed it.
02:13 It's not like this is Vanderbilt or Rutgers
02:18 in the modern era of college football,
02:20 that it is not the Rutgers from the early 1900s
02:23 when they were winning big games
02:25 and I don't know, maybe winning a national championship
02:28 back in 1903 or whatever.
02:31 But why not West Virginia?
02:34 That is my serious question to all these folks that,
02:37 and this is even coming from West Virginia fans,
02:41 some West Virginia fans, why do you not have that hope?
02:46 I don't think it should be an expectation by any means,
02:51 by any stretch of the imagination,
02:52 because when you look at it, all these rosters
02:56 across college football, clearly West Virginia
02:59 is at a disadvantage, but they've been close before.
03:02 Even in this new era of NIL, Portal, all that crap,
03:09 it's very much possible that they could get
03:13 to the college football playoff,
03:15 especially now more than ever, 12 teams in the damn thing,
03:18 not just four, where it catered to,
03:21 what, six or seven schools?
03:24 There's 12 teams that get into this thing,
03:26 starting in 2024.
03:28 And oh, by the way, this is the best team
03:32 that Neil Brown's had, at least on paper,
03:36 going into 2024.
03:38 Coming off a nine-win season, a year in which
03:40 they were supposed to finish dead freaking last
03:43 in the Big 12.
03:45 So, I'm not, again, I'm not saying that this should
03:49 be an expectation, but I've seen it on Twitter,
03:54 X, whatever we want to call it,
03:58 not so much from West Virginia fans,
04:00 but people just not even thinking about West Virginia,
04:02 and all the Big 12 Conference Championship dark horses,
04:07 and all this stuff, and there's not one mention
04:12 of West Virginia.
04:15 Why?
04:16 A nine-win season, after they just were picked 14th,
04:22 with a quarterback no one knew hardly anything of
04:26 outside of the state.
04:27 Now everybody knows the kid.
04:30 But they're still not getting recognition.
04:33 Again, I'm not saying they should be picked
04:35 to win the dang thing, but to not even be
04:37 in the conversation, that is what should be
04:41 the driving force of this season in 2024.
04:46 Just like 14 was this past year.
04:51 I don't get it.
04:54 Every single era there has been of college football,
04:59 West Virginia has not only been competitive,
05:02 but have been in the national picture at some point,
05:09 at least in my lifetime, or a little before my lifetime.
05:14 You go back to the '80s, when things really started
05:21 to get going, right?
05:22 Don Nealon takes the team to the National Championship,
05:25 1993, undefeated season, gets screwed out
05:29 on national title game for Florida State,
05:31 but still, you're in the national picture.
05:33 2007, we know what happens.
05:37 But even the first half of the season in 2012,
05:42 with Geno and Tavon Steadman, all those guys, right?
05:48 Even the first half, and maybe even 2018 with Will Greer,
05:52 they were in the national picture.
05:53 If just a couple of different things go their way,
05:58 it's a different ball game in each of those seasons.
06:03 More specifically, 2007.
06:07 (phone beeps)
06:09 Well, I guess what I'm getting at is here,
06:13 why is the narrative that West Virginia
06:16 could never accomplish such a thing
06:18 as winning a Big 12 Championship,
06:20 or getting to the college football playoff?
06:22 I mean, what's the argument behind that?
06:29 Again, this is not Vanderbilt, it's not Rutgers,
06:34 it's not Kansas, even though they're
06:37 the new darling of college football.
06:39 But why?
06:43 They've been in the top 10 multiple times.
06:47 They've been in the top 10 within the last decade.
06:52 So why would they not be able to get there now?
06:57 The other part of this is West Virginia
07:02 has one of the most passionate fan bases in all of sports.
07:07 Not just college, all of sports.
07:09 And now we're transitioning into an era
07:13 in which the fans are going to have
07:17 just as every bit of power in their team's
07:22 or school's success as ever,
07:25 because of the NIL stuff, right?
07:30 Fans own businesses.
07:32 And the fans that don't own businesses,
07:35 they can chip in by donating to the trust,
07:40 signing up for a membership.
07:41 And it's not to say that there wasn't that avenue
07:45 in some way before with the MAAC,
07:47 but it's out in the open, right?
07:50 It's free game now.
07:52 So why wouldn't one of the most passionate fan bases
07:56 in all of sports not be able to give these athletes
08:01 a terrific foundation and a terrific pool of money
08:10 or resources that can draw those guys,
08:14 those types of championship level players to Morgantown?
08:17 Why would that not be able to happen?
08:19 I think that's the one thing
08:21 that's getting lost in all this.
08:22 And I get that West Virginia
08:26 is not the most wealthy state.
08:27 We all understand that.
08:29 But there's a difference here, right?
08:34 Because just because you're not the most wealthy state
08:36 doesn't mean that you're not willing to give 20 bucks
08:38 a month to your favorite team,
08:40 or whatever the rate is, 1867, I think it might be.
08:45 But when you talk about how much this school
08:53 and these athletic teams mean to the people in this state,
08:56 it's on another level.
08:58 I'm not suggesting this, but I'm saying
09:03 there will probably be some people out there say,
09:05 eh, we're going to be living pretty tight,
09:09 paycheck to paycheck, but if I could just give $18.67
09:14 to WVU Athletics every month or to the trust
09:20 or whatever it is, the whole setup,
09:23 I might do it because it impacts my mental health.
09:27 Seeing West Virginia win makes me feel better.
09:32 That's something that West Virginians probably battle, right?
09:37 Eh, might live paycheck to paycheck,
09:40 but even though 18 or 20 bucks isn't really a whole lot
09:44 in the grand scheme of things, every little bit counts,
09:47 but every little bit counts also for the trust.
09:52 And there's a lot of those fans that would say,
09:54 you know what, I'd be willing to make things
09:58 a little bit tighter if it meant
10:00 West Virginia being really good.
10:02 And I think that just speaks volumes
10:09 to the passion of this fan base,
10:12 to how much this team means and how much this university
10:17 means to the people in this state.
10:21 It's not just another school.
10:22 You go anywhere else around the country
10:25 and you're not going to have that type of feel
10:28 toward a school.
10:29 This isn't the school.
10:33 I'm just going to be 100% upfront here.
10:37 West Virginians don't look at WVU
10:40 and the athletics program as just a school
10:43 and it's schools athletics, right?
10:45 It is the professional team of this state.
10:50 It's what West Virginians live and die on.
10:55 It's what makes and breaks their weeks.
10:58 So again, I'll ask you the question,
11:02 why not West Virginia?
11:04 Why could they never get to a Big 12 title?
11:07 Why could they never get to college football playoff
11:10 or get close to being in the national conversation
11:14 for the championship?
11:16 And I know you're going to say coaching, I get that.
11:19 That's a major part of it as well.
11:21 But we are also coming again off a season
11:27 where the coach was on the hot seat,
11:30 picked 14th and won nine games
11:32 with a roster that was fully his
11:36 and for the first time in his tenure
11:41 was able to retain a big portion of his team.
11:48 So this is going to come down to fans.
11:52 It's going to come down to the passion of the fans.
11:56 And if we're in this new era,
11:59 I'm not betting against West Virginia fans.
12:01 I'm just not.
12:02 Because the power of the fan base is,
12:07 I just don't think a lot of people understand.
12:13 I don't think a lot of people understand
12:15 how powerful West Virginians can be.
12:18 And that's why I think it is not crazy at all
12:24 to think Big 12 championship, college football playoff,
12:27 national championship, final fours, college world series,
12:32 that those things are unattainable.
12:38 They are.
12:38 And especially in this new era where the fans
12:42 can really be the driving force behind this thing
12:45 and give everything they need resource-wise
12:49 to these athletes and make West Virginia
12:53 the most attractive place as possible.
12:55 So I don't know.
12:59 Maybe I just had to get that off my chest a little bit.
13:03 But again, I'm somebody that if you tell me
13:07 I can't do something, I'm going to be pissed off.
13:10 I'm going to be doing everything I can
13:12 to try and prove you wrong, just like West Virginians
13:15 do every single day when they go to work.
13:17 And I think the same way about this team, its fan base.
13:22 I think they can prove everyone wrong
13:26 and get this athletic program to heights
13:32 we've never seen before.
13:33 I think we can see it across every sport.
13:36 We've already seen it in men's soccer.
13:40 Right?
13:42 We're seeing it right now in women's basketball.
13:45 Mark Kellogg's got that thing rolling.
13:48 Women's soccer's been dominant for a long time.
13:50 We've seen success in men's basketball.
13:54 We've seen success in football.
13:55 I think you're going to start to see it globally.
14:00 So again, why not West Virginia?
14:02 Bet against West Virginia,
14:04 I'm not in the business of doing that.
14:06 Not for, again, not every year.
14:09 That's not every year's expectation.
14:12 But saying they can never do that is silliness.
14:19 And more specifically, again, to this year,
14:23 it's possible.
14:27 Absolutely, 100% possible.
14:29 Likely, that's another conversation.
14:33 But anyways, that'll do it for me here today
14:36 on Between the Ears.
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14:39 at Mountaineers Now.
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14:46 We'll be back tomorrow with another episode.
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