By: James Gravley | WV Sports Chat
On Thursday, ESPN released its Analytics Matchup Projection for the 2025 college football season in which it listed West Virginia as favorites in its first three of four games to start the season.
West Virginia opens its season as runaway favorites over Robert Morris, slight favorites of Ohio and Pitt, but are listed as clear underdogs against Kansas.
And it doesn’t get much better from there.
Against Utah, the Mountaineers are projected as favorites by just 1.8 percent.
WVU then turns around and becomes heavy underdogs against BYU with the Cougars having a projected 81.5 percent to win that game. The UCF Knights are listed as a projected favorite by 66.9 percent while TCU is listed as a projected 56.3 percent favorite.
West Virginia is then listed as slim favorites over Houston by 1.4 percent and just 3.0 percent favorites over Colorado.
West Virginia ends its season against Arizona State and Texas Tech. The Sun Devils are projected as 83.7 percent favorites while the Red Raiders, who some say will win the Big 12, are projected as 56 percent favorites.
That means that West Virginia is only projected to win roughly three Big 12 games, with those three they are favored in to be slugfests that end in late scores or overtime.
If that projection would come to fruition, then West Virginia, under Rich Rodriguez in his first year back as the head coach would finish with a 6-6 overall record and 3-6 in the Big 12.
Here are those projected wins/losses for the Mountaineers for the 2025 season according to ESPN’s Projections.
Wins: RMU, Ohio, Pitt, Utah*, Houston*, Colorado*
Losses: Kansas*, BYU*, UCF*, TCU*, ASU*, Texas Tech*
