In April of 2024, the Virginia Cavaliers announced a home-and-away football series with Washington State, with the Charlottesville contest in 2025 and the battle in Pullman in 2031. An interesting series as these
two teams have met only one other time in 1976, when the ‘Hoos claimed a 38-17 win over the Cougars.
Virginia will be welcomed back to Scott Stadium as a heavy favorite ahead of this matchup, as the Cavaliers have been set as 17.5 point favorites according to FanDuel. Virginia is starting to get some respect from the oddsmakers after its 5-1 start to the season and its 5-1 record against the spread. Vegas may want to start to even that out before Virginia becomes a cash cow to the public. This may be their attempt at doing exactly that.
17.5 points seems a smidge hefty to me, as Washington State has proven over time this season to be a worthy opponent. They struggled early on as 37 of their players from last year entered the transfer portal, including Heisman Trophy candidate QB John Mateer, and they lost their head coach, Jake Dickert, to Wake Forest. The Cougars needed some time to transition this year, and they are starting to play better as the season progresses.
Washington State is led by first-year head coach Jimmy Rogers, who previously was the head man at South Dakota State, where he claimed a 27-3 overall record with the Jack Rabbits. His Cougars have struggled as we approach the latter half of the 2025-2026 season, but have indeed shown signs of promise over the past two weeks, especially on defense.
After back-to-back weeks of giving up 59 points in weeks three and four, Jesse Bobbit’s unit has really shown signs of significant strides the last two weeks, only allowing a field goal against Colorado State and 24 points to Lane Kiffin’s high-powered offense, nearly two touchdowns below their scoring average.
Washington State is a worthy opponent in my eyes. They made a quarterback change a couple of weeks ago to Zevi Eckhaus, that is proven to be the right move; their defense is playing the best it has all year, and Jimmy Rogers seems to have his whole unit starting to settle in after a chaotic offseason and start to this season.
I see Virignia taking this game, but not covering the spread. 34-21 Hoos.
