It’s a new world for the Big 12 Conference. Oklahoma and Texas left the Big 12 for the SEC this week. It was three years in the making and it’s now official. Meantime, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah are set to join the Big 12 in August.

It’s a critical year in college football as the powers try to create a Power 2, rather than a Power 4, with the Big 12 and ACC excluded from the SEC and the Big Ten. So for the Big 12, it will be imperative to get some impressive wins in 2024 to put to bed the narrative that the Big 12 can’t compete with the top two conferences in college football.

There are going to be opportunities for the Big 12, such as Oklahoma State vs. Arkansas and UCF vs. Florida, plus Iowa State vs. Iowa and Colorado vs. Nebraska. But the biggest game for the Big 12 will come in Week 1, when the West Virginia Mountaineers host the Penn State Nittany Lions.

Why Penn State

The Nittany Lions enter the 2024 season as the team best positioned to challenge the top trio in the Big Ten of Ohio State, Michigan and Oregon. Big 12 fans will recall that James Franklin hired Kansas offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki to boost a passing game that ranked 80th in the FBS with 215 yards per game.

The two teams met last year when West Virginia lost 38-15 to Penn State, but that final score does not do the game justice. WVU trailed by a touchdown at halftime, and had it a two-score game entering the fourth quarter before things began to unravel for the Mountaineers.

Penn State finished the regular season 10-2 with their only losses coming against Michigan and Ohio State.

For the Mountaineers

So now these two teams meet for a second-straight season, this time in Morgantown for Week 1. West Virginia is a projected middle-of-the-pack team in the Big 12 preseason poll, despite a nine-win campaign in 2024. So they likely won’t be in the preseason Top 25, while Penn State will likely find itself in the Top 15, if not higher.

For a Big 12 that is being perceived as competitive, but weak at the top, a West Virginia win over a highly-ranked Penn State program immediately gives credibility to the new Big 12 and helps change the conversation from where the national media narrative wants it to be.

National media talking heads want to promote a “Power 2”, because that’s what their overlords at ESPN, FOX, etc. prefer. They want that narrative as the consolidation is good for their college football business.

The Big 12’s Non-Con

At the start of every season I discuss how Big 12 fans should root for every Big 12 team in non-conference play. It’s good for the league to win as many games as possible before conference play, and then when your team plays its conference games, every win is more valuable, if the perception of the league is high. Just ask the SEC about this. That conference has mastered that perception, whether fair or not, and that’s how they get away with eight league games and multiple FCS games, with no questions asked!

So for Big 12 fans, this is the most critical non-conference slate in Big 12 history. It will set the tone for the future of college football.

Will it truly become a Power 2? Or can the Big 12 win the right games to justify conversations around a Power 3 or Power 4 with the ACC?

Regardless, it all begins Week 1 in Morgantown, West Virginia with a 12:00 p.m. EST start on FOX.

West Virginia was picked to finish seventh in the Big 12 preseason poll and according to most sportsbooks, the win total is bouncing around between six and seven wins. Expectations on the outside aren’t all that high, to say the least.

So, what are realistic expectations for the Mountaineers in 2024? What would a disappointing season look like? And how about a dream season? We break it all down below.

Record: 8-4 or 9-3.

We’re thinking realistic with a hint of optimism. It’s no secret that West Virginia’s 2024 schedule is more challenging than what they faced in 2023. That said, reaching eight or nine wins should be attainable for this group which might be the deepest roster Neal Brown has had since taking the job in 2019.

Record: 7-5 or worse.

When you have one of the top dual-threat quarterbacks in the country, a dynamic duo in the backfield, and a stout offensive line you have to win eight games at bare minimum. Anything less will have West Virginia fans wondering if 2023 was an anomaly and questions will arise once again about Neal Brown.

Record: 10-2 or better.

Some would say 10-2 is realistic and I won’t push back too much on that. However, the Mountaineers have not won 10 games since 2016 and to call that a realistic goal is a bit of a stretch, especially with this schedule. This would be be a dream year for WVU. Notching 10 wins most likely secures a spot in the Big 12 championship and perhaps a spot in the College Football Playoff. Achieving two big goals like that for the first time in program history is the definition of a dream year.

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Pittsburgh (Pa.) Aliquippa 2027 athlete Sa’Nir Brooks made the trek down I-79 for a West Virginia one-day camp and left with a scholarship offer from the program.

Brooks, 5-foot-11, 187-pounds, caught the attention of those in attendance with a pair of strong 40-yard dash times and then continued his play throughout the course of the camp.