Five-Loss Big 12 Champion West Virginia Could Create Awkward Bowl Situation

The 2024 Big 12 Conference race is one of the wildest in modern college football history. Nine teams have a chance at the conference crown entering the final week of the regular season. 6-5 West Virginia is among the nine. Standing at 5-3 in Big 12 play, the Mountaineers have a chance. They need many other dominoes to fall, but they have a chance. The tweet below outlines their championship scenario.

Should West Virginia somehow make the Big 12 Championship and win, it creates an awkward situation for the Big 12’s bowl partners. Before the 12-team Playoff, 8-5 Big 12 Champion West Virginia would play in the Sugar Bowl or another New Year’s Six bowl if the Sugar Bowl was a national semi-final. However, all New Year’s Six bowls are quarterfinal and semi-final rounds of the 12-team College Football Playoff. Let’s be realistic. A five-loss Power Four team is not making the Playoffs.

So where would West Virginia bowl?

The Alamo Bowl has the first choice of Big 12 teams after the College Football Playoff, but that was under the assumption the league would always have a team in the Playoff. The Alamo Bowl likely does not have a stipulation in their contract forcing them to choose the Big 12 champion.

In this unlikely scenario, it is difficult to believe the Alamo Bowl would pick 8-5 West Virginia when TCU, Texas Tech, and Baylor are all bowl-eligible with similar records. None of the three Texas schools have appeared in the Alamo Bowl since 2017.

Thus, the five-loss Big 12 champions would likely end up in the Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando, which has the second choice of Big 12 bowl-eligible teams. West Virginia is the closest bowl-eligible Big 12 team to the bowl by nearly 500 miles and has not appeared since 2018. Selecting West Virginia could open the door for Big East reunions against Syracuse, Boston College, or Virginia Tech.

People anticipated the 12-team College Football Playoff would drastically impact the bowl landscape. However, hardly anyone predicted the Playoff would cause a Power Four conference champion to play in a non-New Year’s Six Bowl. Should West Virginia beat the odds and win the Big 12, it would be unprecedented in more ways than one.