Utah's chasing another Big 12 title shot. West Virginia's just trying to survive Rich Rodriguez's second act. This one's a mismatch on paper, and it's happening on a Friday night in Salt Lake City.
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WVUUTAH
WVUUTAH
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Best BetUtah
Utah enters as the clearly better-positioned program — an 11-2 season, a new head coach who won his debut, and a quarterback who chose to stay instead of testing the portal. West Virginia is starting over at quarterback with a transfer who's made just 5 college starts. This is a big favor-the-favorite spot on paper months out.
West Virginia
+Added Oklahoma transfer QB Michael Hawkins Jr.
+Nearly full staff reset gives fresh scheme direction
−Finished 4-8, missed bowl eligibility in 2025
−Lost starting QB Marchiol and two others to portal
Utah
+Finished 11-2, ranked #14, won Las Vegas Bowl by 22
+Dampier returning after bowl MVP performance
−Whittingham's departure means new coach, new staff
−New OC and DC both new to their roles in 2026
This is West Virginia's regular-season finale, and it comes on the heels of a 4-8 season that missed bowl eligibility entirely. Rodriguez responded by ripping up nearly his entire offensive staff and the quarterback room with it — Nicco Marchiol, the guy who started most of 2025, hit the transfer portal along with two other passers. The fix was landing Oklahoma transfer Michael Hawkins Jr., a four-star arm with three years left who's now the presumed frontrunner over incumbent Scotty Fox. That's a lot of new pieces to have humming by late November.
Utah, meanwhile, is dealing with change at the very top. Kyle Whittingham left after 21 seasons to take over at Michigan, and longtime defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley got the promotion — and immediately delivered, winning his head-coaching debut in a 44-22 Las Vegas Bowl beatdown of Nebraska. The centerpiece of that offense, Devon Dampier, threw for 310 yards and ran for 148 more in that bowl game and chose to come back for another year instead of testing the portal. A quarterback that dynamic returning to a Scalley-run program that just finished 11-2 is the kind of continuity WVU simply doesn't have right now.
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WVU West Virginia
UTAH Utah
History offers little comfort for the Mountaineers here. Utah owns this series outright, and the most recent meeting — September 2025 — wasn't close, a 48-22 Utah win. These two programs aren't rivals in any real sense; this is a newer Big 12 pairing since Utah's 2024 conference move, and it's landing on a Friday night slot on FOX after originally being scheduled for Saturday.
West Virginia Mountaineers
Nov 20?vs Houston—
Nov 13?vs Kansas—
Nov 6?@ Texas Tech—
Oct 16?vs Cincinnati—
Oct 9?vs Arizona—
Oct 2?@ Iowa State—
Sep 25?vs Oklahoma State—
Sep 19?@ Virginia—
Sep 12?vs UT Martin—
Sep 5?vs Coastal Carolina—
Utah Utes
Nov 20?@ TCU—
Nov 13?@ Arizona—
Nov 6?vs BYU—
Oct 30?@ Cincinnati—
Oct 16?@ Colorado—
Oct 9?vs Kansas—
Sep 25?@ Iowa State—
Sep 19?vs Utah State—
Sep 12?vs Arkansas—
Sep 3?vs Idaho—
Recent form.
The gap between these two rosters is the story. Utah returns a bowl MVP quarterback and a staff that just proved it can win without its longtime architect. West Virginia is rebuilding its passing game from scratch with a transfer QB who's made all of 5 career starts. Whatever fight WVU shows late in the year will hinge on whether Hawkins — or whoever wins that job — looks like a Big 12 starter by Thanksgiving weekend.
West Virginia Mountaineers
(0)
Fully healthy — no injuries on ESPN's report
Utah Utes
(0)
Fully healthy — no injuries on ESPN's report
Injury report — info via ESPN.
None of this is settled with training camp still weeks away, and depth charts always shift once pads come on in August. But the trajectory of these two programs points in opposite directions heading into this one, and that's before factoring in Utah playing at home in front of a crowd that's used to winning Big 12 games.
