WVU Football: Ranking the top 5 teams in school history
By Daniel Walsh
A look into WVU football’s top five teams of all time ahead of the 2022 season. The Mountaineers have had some dominant squads.
Less than 80 days from now, WVU football will take the field against Pitt for the first Backyard Brawl in over a decade. Pierogis vs. Pepperoni Rolls. Yinzers vs. Y’alls. IC Light vs. Moonshine made by someone’s grandma so strong it could fuel a Boeing 737 NG/737 MAX.
It will be the 131st season in WVU football history.
Though there has been almost only pain and suffering for WVU, the Mountaineers have had some incredible teams and successful seasons. To some, a good WVU team is probably unimaginable, but others can remember teams of pure dominance.
The best team while I was at WVU was the 2016 team that finished 10-3 and third in the Big 12 after preseason media polls had them projected as finishing seventh. Forget your media polls; I hope you lose sleep at night thinking about how bad you messed up. But that was a long time ago, under a different head coach and before the NIL. Now, college football is different and I hope WVU is, too (in a good way).
This season (like every other season that I talk myself into thinking will be different) will either be the start of something new and grand or the final nail in Neal Brown’s coffin.
Is it irresponsible to try and compare WVU teams from the 1980s to teams in the 2010s? Yeah, probably, but I’m going to do it anyway because this is my blog and I want to. It’s the longest stretch of the offseason now so there isn’t a better time to do a deep dive into the best teams in the history of WVU.