Rich Rodriguez’s return to West Virginia has not gone exactly as planned or hoped. But the Mountaineers helped deliver the first signature win of his return on Saturday with a huge road upset, 45-35, over No. 22-ranked Houston. It not only gave Rodriguez his biggest win back at West Virginia, but it also may have completely changed the course of this year’s Big 12 conference. Perhaps the College Football Playoff as well After scoring a huge upset win at Arizona State a week ago, Houston seemed to have positioned itself in the driver’s seat for a potential spot in the Big 12 championship game. Even though the Cougars still trailed three teams in the conference standings — Cincinnati, BYU and Texas Tech — they would only need to climb over two of them to get a shot. And with Cincinnati and BYU still playing each other, and with Texas Tech still having to play BYU, there was a good chance they were going to get the help needed. Add in the fact that Houston had what looked to be the easiest remaining schedule
