The crush of playing in a conference where all the members are west of the Mississippi River and the shortest away game is a 1,700-mile roundtrip has hit home with the West Virginia Mountaineers after less than a season in the Big 12. Hard to blame West Virginia, which had little choice but to join the Big 12, but from a travel and geography standpoint it is far from ideal. Welcome to college sports in the 21st century.


By Bob Hertzel, Times West Virginian

MORGANTOWN — West Virginia University’s athletic department and the Big 12 have agreed to attempt to make some travel changes to accommodate the problems the Mountaineers faced during their first season in the Big 12.

Athletic director Oliver Luck says the league offered no guarantees because “scheduling is always a challenge” but the league has agreed to attempt to make life on the road easier in a number of areas when it can.

WVU geographically is out of place in the Big 12, with every trip not only being of 1,700 miles round trip or more but fighting a time zone change which costs them an hour returning to Morgantown.

Football did not present as much of a problem as basketball, with weekly trips and mostly weekend games, but, according to Luck, the league was agreeable to trying to arrange it so the Mountaineers do not have to travel on back-to-back week for conference games during the season.

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