No, ESPN, WVU is the other “Virginia”!

By Appalachian Magazine

Though West Virginia University’s football program got off to what many Mountaineer fans perceived to be a promising start to the 2015 college football season, as the team turned its attention to BIG XII play, things have been anything but inspiring.

Fresh off a 45-6 non-conference road win against border-rival Maryland, the Mountaineers traveled to Norman, Oklahoma, to face the Sooners.

The game served as a reality check for the boys from Morgantown, as the conference opener concluded with a 24-44 defeat against one of the Top-25 teams in the nation.

The following week, West Virginia hosted the Oklahoma State Cowboys, where they lost again in a heartbreaking overtime finish.

If the first two losses were disappointing, the last two have been downright unbearable for the Mountaineer faithful. A humiliating road loss to what is arguably the number-one team in the nation, Baylor, by a score 38-62 was followed last Thursday by a sickening 10-40 loss against Texas Christian University, the fifth-ranked team in the nation.

Though all of these items have culminated to create one of the worst stretches of conference games in recent memory, the greatest Mountaineer insult occurred late-Sunday evening when ESPN’s ACC Twitter account (this Tweet has since been removed… Thank God for screenshots!), reporting on Frank Beamer’s departure from Virginia Tech, asked the question, “Who will replace Frank Beamer at West Virginia?”

Adding insult to injury, the teaser photo was a picture of former West Virginia football coach Rich Rodriguez, who left the Mountaineers in the cover of darkness days before one of the biggest bowl games in school history.

As expected, the Tweet was met with a volley of angry Mountaineer fans, one of which implored the social media team at ESPN to, “go home, you’re drunk.”

For decades the Mountaineers and Hokies faced each other in an annual rivalry game where they competed for the Black Diamond Trophy.

Though West Virginia leads the series, which dates back to 1912, 28–22–1, Virginia Tech, secured wins in nine of the last twelve meetings and presently houses the coal trophy in its trophy room in Blacksburg.

In July 2014, it was announced that the two teams agreed to play at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, on September 2, 2017.

Despite the fact that West Virginia has been a part of the United States for over 150 years, residents of the Mountain State often complain that outside of the Mid-Atlantic region, they often run into individuals who are clueless to the fact that Virginia and West Virginia are actually two different states!