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MORGANTOWN -- The only thing certain about the Big 12 in this upcoming football season is that nothing is certain.
It's a whole new world. Sprawling from Florida to Utah, from El Paso to Morgantown, from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians.
There's no bully on the block in Oklahoma. There's no University of Texas arrogance.
It's a rebirth for all 16 of the schools and it shows up in a Preseason Media Poll that does more to confuse the issue of where the conference power lies rather than to sort it out.
The only thing that you can count on is that West Virginia doesn't get the respect it should.
Remember last year's poll, which came out at about this same time in the summer and turned out to be maybe the most important single day of the year for the football program.
WVU was picked 14th and last then, and Coach Neal Brown never let his team forget it. The No. 14 was hung everywhere throughout the football facility. It came up at nearly every meeting.
Brown vowed when it was announced that his team would NOT finish last in the conference. He truly believed he had a better team than that; thought it could even contend for the title, which it almost did. It came a Hail Mary pass away from a 10-win season.
The Mountaineers lived up to their nickname and scaled that mountain named "Respect."
It started with a win over Pitt, a victory that injected an ego-enriching juice into the team, one that grew as the season wound on. They finished 4th in the Big 12, not 14th.
And now, with Oklahoma and Texas gone, you might think they would be considered contenders.
But no, that mountain named "Respect" still must be scaled for as the conference 2024 preseason poll came out, they were picked seventh.
Brown saw it coming a couple of weeks earlier. Speaking about not having been picked 14th in the league to inspire his team this season, he nailed that it was being seen as a middle-of-the-pack team this season despite a roster that would seem even stronger than last year's.
"The respect this year is medium," he said then in a one-on-one interview opportunity. "All the national magazines are coming out. We're not in the preseason Top 25 more than we're in. I don't know how many nine-win teams are not in the Top 25, but we're on the outside of most of those.
"Most of the Big 12 early stuff, we're like in the middle of the pack. It's not like we're on the top of these pre-season things," Brown went on. "It's different than a year ago, yes … But I still don't think -- especially nationally -- we're on people's radar like we should be.
"There is still the hunt. It's not like we've arrived, by any means."
The truth is that the nation is looking upon the Big 12 just as the Big 12 looks upon WVU.
There is no bell cow, no logo that stands above all others, as there was when Oklahoma was in the conference.
In truth, the poll offers no consensus on anything.
No fewer than five teams received first-place votes from the media.
It was headed by Utah, with 20 first-place votes, followed by Kansas State with 19, Oklahoma State with 14, Kansas with 4 and Arizona with 3. In total points based on where they were picked in the standings Utah had 906 points, Kansas State with 889 points, Oklahoma State with 829 points, Kansas with 772 points and Arizona with 762 points.
That's what? A fumble at the wrong time, a missed field goal, a blocked extra point?
It would seem that close when you consider that Iowa State is sixth with 661, West Virginia is seventh with 581 and UCF is eighth with 551, just ahead of Texas Tech with 532. You understand that Brown is right when he states that the Big 12 is "the most competitive conference in the Power 4."
And that's the way it should be, for this is nothing less than an experiment, mixing teams from here, there and everywhere into one big pot and hoping you come up with a tasty "Chef's Surprise".
Is Utah the best team in the conference? Who's to say they are? Who's to say they aren't?
A year ago, the Utes were 8-5, 5-4 in the Pac-12.
Arizona was 10-2 and 7-3 in that same conference.
Were they better than Kansas State, Oklahoma State or WVU? Whose brand of football will dominate in a new league that has yet to create its personality?
"This year I think as many as eight teams have a chance to win it. We'd love to do it, but I don't know because it's new, partly; and no team's been dominant," Brown said.
Right now we begin writing a new history for the Big 12. Welcome to Chapter One.