MORGANTOWN –The second half of the season starts this Saturday for West Virginia with another road game against UCF. WVU’s season hasn’t gone according to Rich Rodriguez’s plan so far, and it has lost the last three games, which were all against Big 12 opponents.

It’s time to see if Rodriguez can turn this season around and create the momentum WVU AD Wren Baker said he was looking for in Rodriguez’s first season back in August.

Luckily, Rodriguez fared well off of a bye week with a 21-8 record over his four head coaching stops, and was recently 6-0 at Jacksonville State.

UCF is one of the few remaining winnable games on WVU’s schedule. TCU is a hard out, Houston’s looked better, Arizona State has some big wins, and Texas Tech is solidifying itself as the top team in the Big 12.

The Golden Knights are in a similar situation to WVU. Scott Frost is back at UCF as the head coach after he couldn’t find success at his alma mater, Nebraska. Frost led the Golden Knights to a 19-7 record over two seasons, and the undefeated 2017 season, where the school claimed the 2017 National Championship.

Like Rodriguez, Frost is hoping to pick up UCF where he left off the first time, after a 4-8 season in 2024.

Frost’s squad has a slightly better record than the Mountaineers at 3-3, but has lost its last three games, all in conference. UCF won all three non-conference games, including a big win over North Carolina.

UCF also had a quarterback question heading into the season, like WVU. Frost has used three separate quarterbacks, and most recently went with quarterback Cam Fancher, who had a close game against now-ranked No. 24 Cincinnati. He threw for 222 yards, rushed for over 100 yards and rushed for a score.

Frost started the first couple of games with Tayven Jackson, but he was injured after Kansas, so Fancher played against Cincinnati. Fancher was recently ruled out, so Jackson will likely start once again.

UCF looked competitive against Cincinnati, and against most Big 12 opponents, unlike WVU’s Big 12 games. The Golden Knights only lost by seven to Kansas and nine points to the Bearcats.

They just can’t get a win, and maybe this is the week against West Virginia, which hasn’t been close to winning any Big 12 game. The closest WVU came to securing a conference win was recently against BYU, where the Cougars were doing everything to lose the game and still didn’t lose.

UCF has looked better than WVU, and has home-field advantage. All signs point to the Golden Knights picking up a win.

My only issue is that before the season started, I picked every game and the outcome. I said WVU would win the first three and lose the next three. So far, I’m 5-1 with those picks, so I’m going to go with WVU in a close, low-scoring game because both offenses haven’t been consistent this season.

If I were a betting man, though, I wouldn’t put any money on WVU beating a better UCF, so remember that.

This is a must-win for both teams. A must-win, not for Big 12 Championship or College Football Playoff aspirations, but it’s a must-win to not be the second-from-bottom this year in the Big 12. Oklahoma State is at the bottom pretty comfortably after firing head coach Mike Gundy.

— West Virginia 21, Central Florida 17