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The Big 12 Conference announced today that West Virginia’s conference opener against Oklahoma State on Saturday, Sept. 26, will kick off at 3:30 p.m. EDT, and broadcast on either ABC or ESPN, from Boone Pickens Stadium, in Stillwater, Oklahoma. This will be the first road trip under the COVID-19 protocols for WVU. This will be the first road trip of the season for WVU.
Mark your calendars for the @Big12Conference opener at Oklahoma State!
— WVU Football (@WVUfootball) September 14, 2020
- Sept. 26
- 3:30 p.m.
- ABC or ESPN pic.twitter.com/fDxGW7X3ll
For the second game in a row, WVU will be on a national network thanks in large part to the lack of games in the 2020 college football season due to the Big Ten and Pac-12 delaying their start. Obviously, WVU and OK State is an enticing matchup, but the mid-afternoon slot on either ABC or ESPN shows how valuable this game is compared to the others in week 4 (ish) of the season.
Three of the five Big 12 games will be afternoon kickoffs and only the Kansas-Baylor game will not air on a major cable network. This is unequivocally good for the conference.
Oklahoma State plays this Saturday, Sept. 19, against Tulsa, which was originally scheduled from September 12 due to positive COVID-19 test results on both teams. Fans will be in attendance at all OK State football games this season.
WVU is off this week and will rest after its season-opening win against Eastern Kentucky. Whether or not this schedule benefits WVU or not will be a curious understory of the game.
The Cowboys lead the all-time series 7-4 and have dominated the Big 12 matchups 6-2. The Mountaineers last beat OK State in 2014 with a 24-10 win in Stillwater.
Neal Brown’s first-ever game against as a head coach Oklahoma State and Mike Gundy was a 20-13 loss in Morgantown last November. Brown was 0-4 against OK State as an assistant, losing as the OC of Troy in 2008 as the OC of Texas Tech in 2010, 2011 and 2012. His offenses have never scored more than 24 points against the Cowboys.
This will be WVU football’s first trip to Stillwater since stadium namesake and mega benefactor T. Boone Pickens passed in 2019.