File photo WVU athletic director Wren Baker speaks to the media during a recent gathering.

MORGANTOWN — Brett Yormark runs the Big 12 in his role as commissioner, so you would hardly expect him to downplay it at its Big 12 Football Media Days, but his assessment of where the conference stands and where he sees it heading as it enters the 2025 football season carries an echo of a champagne bottle’s cork popping in celebration.

Yes, he knows it is overshadowed by the reputations of the SEC and Big 12, but that doesn’t mean he has to accept that.

To him, it’s a Power 4 group with all four conferences standing shoulder to shoulder.

“I love the trajectory of this conference,” Yormark said in his annual address to the group. “I love where we’re going. Our schools are making incredible investments in infrastructure, performance and student athletes. It’s everything I could have wished for when I took this job three years ago.

“But I will tell you; we’re just getting started. This conference today is not the best version of itself, but we will be sooner than later,” he continued. “And, as I said earlier, we have a unified board, an incredible group of ADs, we share in the vision for this conference and I’m excited about our future.”

Assuming he’s right, that puts West Virginia right in the midst of being a national factor in the sport’s progress, but also lays heavy pressure on a school with a new president who has yet to take the reins in Michael T. Benson, who is slated to replace Gordon Gee on July 15.

With Wren Baker, who has fought what seems to be a thousand brush fires along the way as he had to deal with everything from hiring to firing coaches, from the departure of Basketball Hall of Fame coach Bob Huggins and both of the men’s and women’s basketball coaches who came in and made a hasty exit after a year, he has kept the athletic department moving in the direction Yormark relishes.

With Yormark’s vision of the Big 12 being a rising light in the college game rather than a setting sun, this is a critical moment in Mountaineer athletic history and Baker has proven himself to be the right person to lead them forward.

Normally, a decision of an athletic director from another school in another conference will cause nothing but a small ripple on Cheat Lake and the Monongalia River but when Joe Castiglione announced he was retiring as Oklahoma’s athletic director, it shook the earth in Morgantown.

You see, Baker, the man who has ushered the Mountaineers into the post-House decision era of revenue sharing and NIL money, is an Oklahoman and began being mentioned as a candidate for the job almost before the news had gone from OU’s home in Norman to Oklahoma State’s home in Stillwater.

Now, before anyone does anything drastic, it is fair to say that Baker is A candidate for the job at Oklahoma, not necessarily THE candidate.

There seems to be a consensus that Mississippi State Athletic Director Zac Selmon, who not only is a native of Norman and a former top aide to Castiglione but a son and nephew of the famed Selmon Brothers — Lucious, Lee Roy and Dewey — who starred as players with the Sooners during their dynasty years, could be a candidate too.

That certainly carries a lot of weight in the hiring process, right there along with his grooming at first in North Carolina and then under Castiglione before getting on-the-job training in Starkville, Miss.

Despite that, one would have to assume that Baker, who may have oil rather than blood flowing through his veins, would be attracted to the job. He is a native of Valliant, Oklahoma, received his bachelor’s degree from Southwestern Oklahoma State University 24 years ago and earned his master’s degree at Oklahoma State University.

But make no doubt, he has not been just selling us all a bill of goods with the praise he has heaped upon his adopted state and its people since he arrived in 2022. He has spent much of his available time touring the state.

On July 4 he posted on X this:

“One last family adventure this week, we did the Bridge Walk at the New River Gorge Bridge. So many fun things to do in our beautiful state.”

But being an athletic director in your home state and replacing your former boss, at a football program that has a case full of national championships has strong allure, especially for an athletic director who has seen a number of coaches walk out on what were big opportunities and left him even though he had brought them from mid-level schools into the Power Four.

He also has witnessed that turning down what could turn into life changing offers can backfire, as his latest hire, football coach Rich Rodriguez, once turned down a school with a big-time football reputation.

So, the school hired some guy named Nick Saban. The school was Alabama.

Baker is currently under contract through 2030, serving on a contract that got a strong extension of two years in May 2024.

Caught between leaders, WVU probably should find a way to act fast and begin negotiations on a new deal, but one suspects that Baker would want to see the Oklahoma situation play out and see if they offer and what that offer will consist of.

Baker has created a situation at West Virginia that has brought it smoothly in the new era of college athletics and has proven himself to be the right man for this job.

Hopefully, he has found himself comfortable enough to accept a bigger, better contract to see through what he has started, but as it is with Yormark’s Big 12, it’s just getting started.