I know, I have a hard time believing it, too, B. West Virginia, perhaps a preseason top-25 team and certainly no less than in the conversation, could find itself near the top of the Big 12’s preseason poll and at least figure prominently in crowning a regular-season champion. Yet the league’s television schedule, it would seem, is entertaining different plans.

WVU has but one Big Monday game, though it’s at home. This is surely disappointing. Exposure is something players enjoy and coaches sell to recruits. But the Saturday-Monday turnarounds can be brutal, especially late in the season, because of the travel the Mountaineers must submit themselves to.

(Aside: There is room for other not-so-big Monday games on other ESPN platforms. There were four such Mondays last season, and WVU was part of one at Texas Tech on ESPNU. That was a part of the Big 12’s desire to help WVU by combining two road games into one trip at the start of conference play and when the university is on a semester break. But that’s not happening this season — unless the Big 12 has a bad sense of humor. WVU plays at Virginia Tech Wednesday, Dec. 30. Kind of hard to ask WVU to go to Blacksburg, Va., on the 29th and either come back to campus and ring in the New Year and then travel again or to remain on the road and travel to the Lonestar State or Oklahoma or Kansas to knock out two games in one trip. Something would be possible the following weekend because WVU’s spring semester doesn’t begin until Jan. 11, but the Big 12 doesn’t list any Big Monday games that day. Come to think of it, long term, not having that scheduling convenience is a concern, no?)

So Saturday-Monday sequences are tough, and Kansas has four while Iowa State and Texas have three, that being the product of a exciting preseason expectations and an exciting new face on the sideline, respectively. Maybe WVU will like checking in under the radar in August and standing right in the middle of it in March.