photo by: AP Photo/Kathleen Batten

West Virginia offensive lineman Kimo Makane'ole (56) reacts after a touchdown against Pittsburgh during overtime of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025, in Morgantown, W.Va.

West Virginia’s win over Pitt was by far the biggest win of the young season, and probably won’t be topped the rest of this year, or for the next five years until the Backyard Brawl renews in 2029.

Rich Rodriguez had a lot of family in town and some of his friends from Arizona, when he was the head coach there from 2012-17, and after the win, he smoked cigars with them until midnight.

“We all realized, ‘Damn, we’re hungry,” Rodriguez told Pat McAfee on ESPN. “We haven’t ate since 8 a.m.”

The only thing that was open at that time was the Applebee’s in Morgantown.

“Thankfully, the chef was still there,” Rodriguez said. “We kind of barged in there. Ate some Applebee’s at 12 o’clock and had a grand time.”

Fans were celebrating by drinking, some were still in the tailgate lot a couple hours after the game ended, and there were a couple of couches burned. Spirits were at an all-time high, and there were definitely some hangovers on Sunday morning.

However, there’s still a lot of season left to play. WVU starts Big 12 play against Kansas this weekend, and the Mountaineers are already double-digit underdogs.

Rodriguez has a 24-hour rule. He talked about it after the Ohio loss, too. The players and coaches have 24 hours to reflect on what happened. After 24 hours, it’s flushed and time to look ahead.

“We have 24 hours to celebrate, enjoy the win, or correct, make corrections on the loss, and then we’re moving on,” tight end Grayson Barnes said.

On Sunday, WVU has a walkthrough to correct the mistakes from the previous game, Monday is an off day, and then Tuesday and Wednesday are big practice days.

The team was still excited over the win during the walkthrough, so Barnes said Rodriguez made sure the team geared up for Big 12 play this week.

“Coach Rod said to the team, ‘We’re entering conference play, we got to buckle it up, dial it up, get back to running things how we know how to run them,’ Barnes said. “Just kind of running our place and doing our thing, and just making sure we focus more on execution.”

Tuesday and Wednesday’s practices will be the most crucial. Rodriguez said he can tell right away if the team is still thinking about the Pitt win. He will bring them right back down to earth if that’s the case.

“I don’t mind yelling anyway,” Rodriguez said. “I’ll be into today’s practice, in their grill a little bit. If I need to, it doesn’t bother me at all.”

The practice structure won’t change, though. It doesn’t matter the outcome of each game. Rodriguez said after Pitt, the week of practice was the same as the week leading up to Ohio. Nothing changed.

“Our practice doesn’t change,” Rodriguez said. “We’re going to practice the same way, with the same type of, I guess, I hope, focus and intensity.”

Kansas is a good team, and in some cases, better than Pitt. Kansas went toe-to-toe with Missouri its last time out, and the Tigers are now ranked No. 23 in the AP Poll. It’ll be another tough game.

Shaking the hangover and getting ready for the Jayhawks is the focus this week.

“This will be the challenge,” Rodriguez said.