Thinking Out Loud: 2-15 Against State of Oklahoma

2-15. You read that right. Two wins, 15 losses against the state of Oklahoma (Oklahoma State Cowboys and Oklahoma Sooners). The only two times the Mountaineers have won against either team was in 2013 with Clint Trickett in the all-gold banana suits and in 2014 when the Mountaineers actually stepped on someone’s throat in a 34-10 win. Sine 2014, the Mountaineers have not beaten either team and have now lost in excruciating fashion to the Cowboys three times (2015, 2018 and 2020).

Losing against the two teams, in of itself is not really something special. The Oklahoma Sooners have won the Big 12 Championship all but two years since West Virginia joined the conference. Losing to the Sooners is nothing special since the Sooners have the most wins in conference since 2010 and its not close. An article from 247Sports shows that the Sooners have won 77 conference games since 2010. The team with the second most wins? The Oklahoma State Cowboys.

I asked a few years ago what the fan expectation for the Mountaineers was. You told me that you expected to compete for a championship every 4 years, because my expectation of every 5-7 was not enough. 63% of you who voted said the expectation was 8-10 wins with more of you leaning towards 10 than 8.

For the Mountaineers and Neal Brown, it is going to require that they solve the Oklahoma problem. They’ve been close a few times. Six of the 15 losses have been by one score or less. Unfortunately, seven of the losses saw one of the Oklahoma’s score at least 50 points. If fans, coaches and players want to get over the hump and play for titles, they are going to have to figure out how to beat the two best coaches in the conference in Mike Gundy and Lincoln Riley and will need to find a way to beat the two best teams in the conference. Until they do, we will just be another also ran.