This is the first of eight games between the two conferences over the weekend; last year West Virginia lost to LSU by one in Morgantown and two years ago was defeated by Missouri in Columbia.
Those SEC/Big 12 Challenge games took place during the first week of December, but this year ESPN opted to push the games back to the last week of January to fill a programming hole during the open week of the NFL season ahead of next weekend’s Super Bowl.
The West Virginia-Florida matchup pits two outstanding defensive teams; one, West Virginia, which leads the country by forcing nearly 20 turnovers per game, and the other, Florida, which is second in the SEC in scoring defense by holding its opponents to an average of 64.