Houston is 7-1 this season and was recently ranked No. 22 in the AP Top 25. The Cougars’ only loss is to Texas Tech, who is currently ranked 13th in the country, and recently picked up their first ranked win against Arizona State in Tempe.

I bring this up because just last year, Houston was 3-6 in the conference and 4-8 overall. 2024 was the Cougars’ first season with a new coach, Willie Fritz, and it didn’t completely change the program like everyone expected. With Houston’s remaining schedule of West Virginia, TCU, UCF and Baylor, there’s a good chance the Cougars make the Big 12 Championship game.

Houston beat writer for the Houston Chronicle, Joseph Duarte, told me there’s a real chance the Cougars are this year’s Arizona State, and that’s Fritz’s hope. Arizona State shocked everyone and was picked last to win the Big 12, and then won the conference.

If you go back to 2023, Kenny Dillingham became the head coach of the Sun Devils and then went 3-9. In his second year, he went 11-3, won the Big 12, and almost won a College Football Playoff game.

After a loss to TCU, West Virginia is 2-6 and has lost all five of its Big 12 games. In four of the losses, WVU didn’t put up a fight and lost by an average of 27 points. The defense allowed 38 points per game, and the offense couldn’t move the ball down the field.

The season hasn’t gone according to plan. There were high hopes that Rich Rodriguez would come to Morgantown, flip the roster, and WVU would immediately be competitive again. WVU would have an Indiana-Curt Cignetti-like story, but that hasn’t happened.

WVU did look a bit more competitive against TCU. The Horned Frogs were always in front, but there was a chance, if the ball bounced WVU’s way, the Mountaineers could’ve won.

True freshman quarterback Scotty Fox Jr. actually gave WVU a passing threat, throwing for a team-high 301 yards and two passing touchdowns. The defense made a couple of big stops, had fewer missed tackles, and only allowed one big play. There was improvement.

There aren’t a lot of games left that are winnable, the lone one being Colorado, who was just stomped by Utah, so a bowl game is probably out of the picture. WVU has a couple of chances for an upset with this weekend against Houston and at the end of the year against Texas Tech.

Realistically, hope for a complete turnaround doesn’t look promising. What’s reassuring is that WVU heads to Houston to play a team that was in a similar situation last year to the Mountaineers’ situation this year.

In the past two years, a bad team in the Big 12 with a first-year head coach has completely turned things around in Year 2. There’s a possibility that WVU will be next year.

A lot would have to go right, though. WVU has to settle on a quarterback first, hit on some players in the portal at a higher rate than this offseason, and the players have to fully buy into what Rodriguez is trying to build.

Before the “fire Rich Rod” comments come and you give up, just remember this has happened before.

For this week, WVU isn’t at the point where you’d pick the Mountaineers over Houston, but maybe in the future, it could happen.

Prediction: Houston 28, West Virginia 14