Coastal Carolina's rebuild — 50 new faces, 29 of them off the transfer portal — showed exactly what a first road trip with an unsettled quarterback room looks like against a Power 4 favorite. The Chanticleers didn't get on the board until midway through the third quarter, and by then West Virginia had already banked the game.
Then the script flipped hard. Down 24-7 entering the fourth, Coastal Carolina outscored West Virginia 17-7 in the final period, closing to within a touchdown before running out of time. It's the kind of finish that will make Beard's staff feel good about the fight in a roster that's still finding itself, even in a loss.
For West Virginia, the takeaway is a get-out-of-jail win over a rebuilding Group of 5 team that let up too much ground late. A program looking to prove 2025 was the outlier, not the norm, will happily take a 1-0 start — but a defense that surrendered 17 fourth-quarter points to a team breaking in a new quarterback is a real thing to clean up before Big 12 play.