Quarterback Garrett Greene gave the Mountaineers two straight wins going into next month’s bowl game. Courtesy photo

SHEPHERDSTOWN — With its most wins since the 2018 season, West Virginia will learn its bowl destination on Sunday.

At 8-4 overall and 6-3 in the Big 12 the Mountaineers actually tied for fourth place in the final conference standings.

There were nine teams from the Big 12 to qualify for a bowl game, including Central Florida and Texas Tech which both had 6-6 records.

All nine Big 12 qualifiers will go bowling despite the fact the conference has tie-ins with only seven bowls. None of the conference’s teams will go to the national semifinals.

All seven of the contracted bowls the Big 12 is connected with are located in areas where the December weather could be gentle enough for its fans.

WVU Running Back Jahiem White evades the opposition in a game earlier this season. Courtesy photo

Beginning with the Independence Bowl in Shreveport on Dec. 16, the other six contracted bowl locations are the First Responder Bowl on Dec. 26 in Dallas, the Guaranteed Rate Bowl in Phoenix on Dec. 26, the Texas Bowl in Houston on Dec. 27, the Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando on Dec. 28, the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio on Dec. 28 and the Liberty Bowl in Memphis on Dec. 29.

Last weekend’s win against Baylor came because a hurry-up scoring drive was punctuated by a closing TD that was counted with only 23 seconds to play as the game-long rain continued. West Virginia trailed by four points and needed a TD and not a field goal or it would have lost.

It was raining and the Mountaineers were faced with a monumental fourth-and-goal play from the Baylor 29. They had no timeouts remaining.

Quarterback Garrett Greene found Jahiem White along the sidelines and the game somehow fell into the WVU win column — giving it two straight wins going into next month’s bowl game. The resilient Mountaineers had gone 80 yards in six plays to get their eighth win of the 2023 season.

West Virginia’s bowl opponent could come from the Pac 12, ACC, American Athletic, Big 10, SEC or even Notre Dame depending on how the conference championship games are decided this weekend or what each bowl selection committee likes in its game candidates.

At any rate there won’t be a frosty trip to Detroit, New York City, Boston, Boise, El Paso or Annapolis for a bowl reward. The other bowl teams from the Big 12 are Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Central Florida and Texas Tech.

There are actually 41 bowls played and the NCAA had to allow James Madison and Jacksonville State (Alabama) into the partying because it didn’t have enough teams with at least six wins to go bowling. The final team to get a last-minute call to a bowl was Minnesota with its 5-7 record. The Golden Gophers had the highest team grade point average of all the many teams with only five wins. In came Minnesota and the NCAA and bowls had their necessary 82 teams to get the awaited postseason underway.