Previewing 2012 WVU Football Opponents: Texas - WVU Football, WVU Basketball, News - Mountaineer Sports

The first major road test of the 2012 football season for West Virginia University will come in the first week of October. WVU will pay the University of Texas a visit in Austin.

Texas had a rough year in 2011 compared to Texas standards finishing 8-5 following a 5-7 season in 2010. The Longhorns are expected to bounce back in a big way.

Here is a basic glance at Texas:

TEXAS LONGHORNS

2011 Record – (8-5)

Head Coach: Mack Brown (227-113-1 as Head Coach)

                                      (141-39 at Texas and 1 Nat'l Champ.)

Stadium: Texas Memorial Stadium

Seating Capacity: 100,119

Returning Starters: (10 on offense, 7 on defense)

Leading Passer in 2011: David Ash (1,068 Yds, 4 TD, 8 INT)

Leading Rusher in 2011: Malcolm Brown (742 Yds, 5 TD)

Leading Receiver in 2011: Mike Davis (609 Yds, 1 TD)

Last Meeting vs. WVU: 1956 (WVU 7, Texas 6)

Record vs. WVU: 0-1

These two teams met once. That was in 1956 with WVU squeaking by the Longhorns 7-6 in Austin, Texas.

Texas returns 17 starters and loses just one starter on offense. The starting quarterback job has not been decided and likely will remain undecided until fall camp. David Ash and Case McCoy are competing against each other for that position and neither one emerged as a clear starter through the spring.

Ash completed 56 percent of his passes in 2011 for 1,068 yards. He passed for four touchdowns, but also threw eight interceptions.

McCoy completed 61 percent of his passes in 2011 for 1,045 yards. He passed for seven touchdowns while throwing four interceptions.

The Texas defense is expected to be among the best in the conference. It is looking like this game could be decided by how the Texas defense either succeeds or fails against the WVU offense.

The other intangible will be the atmosphere. Texas Memorial Stadium seats more than 100,000 fans. That seats more than the 92,000 fans WVU played in front of at LSU in 2010.

Texas enjoys a very strong success rate at home in Austin although this group of Texas players has struggled at home of late. Texas is just 5-8 at home in the last two seasons. Prior to that, Texas went 18-1 during the 2007-2009 seasons.

Dana Holgorsen's only season at Oklahoma State featured a matchup between No. 11 OSU and an unranked Texas team. OSU won that game 33-16. Texas finished that season with a 5-7 record.

WVU will visit Texas on October 6.