MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia’s 2025 season will come to a closure at some point Saturday afternoon.

Playing for little more than pride, the Mountaineers welcome seventh-ranked Texas Tech to Milan Puskar Stadium for a noon matchup airing on ESPN.

WVU will honor 40 seniors before kickoff.

“They’ve meant an awful lot,” said head coach Rich Rodriguez. “Sometimes it’s hard. Some of these guys have been here six months or less. How do they adapt? There’s not been one guy I’ve been like, ‘I wish he didn’t come here or he’s not a good senior.’ I’m really proud of that class. There’s been some tough moments for us this year and not everything has worked out for those guys like maybe they wanted it to or we wanted it to, but they’ve hung in and battled, and that’s been good for our program, so I’m really proud of them. 

Rodriguez and an entirely new staff worked to fill out the roster after the head coach was hired in December 2024 for his second stint with this title.

The Mountaineers (4-7, 2-6) struggled mightily for much of the season, but have been far better and more competitive across their last four games, which they’ve split. Sandwiched between a six-point home loss to TCU and a 25-23 setback at Arizona State in the most recent contest November 15, West Virginia secured a win at then-nationally ranked Houston and followed it up with a home seven-point triumph against Colorado.

Rodriguez credits a large group of seniors for helping the team stay the course and continue playing hard despite an 0-5 start in Big 12 play that featured four losses by an average of 27.8 points to start.

“Whether they’re a guy that’s been here one year or five or six years, they’ve worked really hard to help us get our program where we want to,” he said. “We’re a long way from getting there, but this senior class has helped us at least establish the culture.” 

Oddly enough, the resurgent play began for a senior-reliant team began with true freshman Scotty Fox Jr. at quarterback, and the matchup with the Red Raiders (10-1, 7-1) will mark the sixth straight start behind center for Fox.

Fox has displayed his fair share of positive moments across each of his last four starts, although this one comes against the top scoring defense in the Big 12 Conference at 12.3 points, good for a No. 4 national ranking.

Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire expects Rodriguez to put Fox in position to make things stressful on the stingy Red Raider defense.

“Coach Rodriguez is an offensive guru. They’re going to tempo,” said McGuire, whose team also goes fast offensively. “You go back and look at his career, he’s kind of the king of tempo. He has playmakers. They do a great job of getting the ball on the perimeter.”

Linebacker Jacob Rodriguez, in the running for a plethora of national honors, is the unquestioned leader of a unit that’s allowed 36 points during an ongoing four-game win streak and more than 20 points once all season, during the team’s only loss at Arizona State, 26-22.

“Jacob Rodriguez is amazing and he should probably win the Butkus and Lombardi and all that,” WVU defensive coordinator Zac Alley said. “The Heisman is tough. You look at Heisman voting and it’s a quarterback award nowadays and occasionally you get a freak like a Travis Hunter or the kid from Boise [Ashton Jeanty] last year who’s the second all-time greatest running back in the history of college football and he didn’t win the award. It’s tough for a defensive-only player to win the Heisman, but there’s some other benchmarks as far as national awards that are maybe more relevant to defensive guys.”

Texas Tech quarterback Behren Morton has returned to play the last three games after missing the previous two with an injury, the first of which was the setback to the Sun Devils. Slightly north of 66 percent, Morton has the No. 1 completion percentage in the Big 12, and the senior has a lengthy list of weapons at his disposal, starting with a stellar ground game that features one of the better running back combinations in the country.

Tailbacks Cameron Dickey and J’Koby Williams have both been plenty productive. Dickey is third in the Big 12 with 944 rushing yards and first with 13 rushing touchdowns. Williams, whose 5.8 yards per carry average is slightly better than Dickey’s 5.6, shows 647 yards with five scores in the ground. 

“My analyst compared No. 8 [Dickey] to [former Rutgers and Baltimore Ravens running back] Ray Rice if that makes you feel better. It didn’t make me feel better,” Alley said. “He’s really patient. He’s a great visual runner. He can find holes and lets blocks develop and is kind of a one-cut, downhill, can run you over and outrun you, too, type of guy. 

“The other back they use [Williams] is more of the scat back, get him in space, outside run game, those type of things. He gets one step and he’s gone every time. He has one step speed. They don’t have a fear of using either of them the same way, but they’re slightly different in their skill sets.”

Wideouts Caleb Douglas, Reggie Virgin and Coy Eakin all have more than 40 catches and at least 500 receiving yards, while Douglas leads the group with 48 receptions for 696 yards.

With Arizona’s 23-7 victory against Arizona State late Friday, the Red Raiders and BYU are assured of squaring off next Saturday in the Big 12 Championship in Arlington, Texas. 

A victory Saturday in Morgantown all but assures Texas Tech, No. 5 in the latest College Football Playoff Rankings, of a berth in the CFP. A win over the Mountaineers coupled with Tech’s second victory this year against the Cougars next week, would almost certainly leave McGuire’s team with a top 4 seed and first-round bye in the playoff.

“It’s one of those deals where if you give me a chance to have a bye and have as much time as possible for this team to be as healthy as possible, one less game to where you’re not getting a lot of grey hair, losing hair or worried about somebody else getting hurt, I’d rather do that,” McGuire said. “But at the end of the day, we’re just trying to get in the mix and if we’re in the mix, then good things are going to happen.”