West Virgina's Recent Success Is a Ressurgence Not a Debut

College football fans are familiar with West Virginia’s recent success. In fact, their 33-5 record over the last three seasons is second only to the USC Trojans. That is pretty impressive company by anybody’s standards. They have had three consecutive top ten finishes and they have also been to five consecutive New Year’s bowls.

As we approach the 2008-09 College Football season expectations are high for the Mountaineers to once again go after a Big East championship and possibly be in the conversation for a national title run.

However it has become apparent to me in my on-line journeys to various sports sites and in reading numerous article comments that there is a common misconception about WVU football. It seems many believe that they are a new face on the competitive landscape.

The persuasion of many is that they are not one of the major programs and deserve no such comparison. I have even come across those that think WVU’s recent success has been their only success.

I expect this is mostly coming from the uneducated or less experienced fan of the sport, because while the Mountaineers have certainly reached a new level of overall success in recent seasons, they are certainly not a “johnny come lately” program by any stretch of the imagination.

There was a winning tradition at West Virginia long before Mr. Rodriguez took over as head coach and there is no reason that it shouldn’t continue now that he has moved on. In fact Don Nehlen, WVU coach from 1980-2000, was the winning-est Mountaineer coach in history and is the 17th winning-est college football coach of all-time.

The WVU football tradition of winning is a  “…tradition dates all the way back to 1922 and a victory in the East-West Bowl in San Diego. WVU has 26 all-time bowl appearances; eight in the last decade...” (from MSNsportsNet.com).

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