While the SEC tries to make sense of a 13-team, two division schedule for its 2012 football season and Missouri floats aimlessly in conference purgatory between the SEC and Big 12, West Virginia's bum's rush out of the Big East and into the Big 12 is littered with legal snares, making even a single game of the 2012 'Neers football schedule absolutely impossible to forecast.
But the Charleston Daily Mail attempts exactly that, despite having no idea what to make of the Mountaineers' 2012 affiliation. Will they be forced to spend one more year in a wounded Big East? Jump headfirst into the Big 12? And if it's the latter, will Missouri be there? How many home and away games can WVU fans expect? What about WVU's non-conference slate moving forward? If Missouri left, would WVU simply plug into their schedule? Says the Daily Mail, no:
Even that's not easy. WVU would have Oklahoma, Kansas State, TCU and Baylor in Morgantown, and face Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech on the road? But what about the annual (since 2007) Mizzou-Kansas game in Kansas City, at the NFL Chiefs' Arrowhead Stadium home.
On the current rotation, it would be Missouri's home date in 2012, so if the deal works that way, WVU would start with a 5-4 schedule plan.
Have YOU recently signed a contract to play football with the West Virginia Mountaineers? We suggest you might consider lawyering up, toot sweet.
West Virginia's four non-league games are home against Marshall and Maryland, at Florida State (the start of a home-and-home and the final games of the ACC-Big East lawsuit settlement from 2005), and a FedEx Field date with FCS member James Madison.
The Mail adds that the buyout for the JMU game in DC is $1 million directly to the Redskins, so that titanic clash is no danger of being cancelled.