UT Martin has won four OVC titles in five years. Here’s our First Look at WVU’s second opponent of the season.
Jason Simpson has built a consistent winner at the FCS level, but UT Martin lost their best defensive player to Syracuse and enters 2026 with more questions than answers on offense.
Over the next six weeks — every Tuesday and Thursday through late June — I’ll have a first look opponent preview for each of WVU’s 12 regular season opponents. I’ve been digging through spring game footage, press conferences, and whatever else I could find to get a real idea of who these teams are right now, before depth charts get shuffled in August and everything changes anyway. Here’s our first look at the Mountaineers’ second opponent of the season, UT Martin.
Game Vitals When: Saturday, September 12, 2026 Where: Milan Puskar Stadium, Morgantown, West Virginia Series Record: This will be the first meeting between West Virginia and UT Martin. 2025 Record : 6-6 (6-2 OVC) Head Coach: Jason Simpson (21st season) Preview Jason Simpson has been at UT Martin for 21 years and has won four Ohio Valley Conference championships in the last five seasons. At the FCS level, the Skyhawks are a legitimately good program.
Last season, UT Martin opened at Oklahoma State and lost 27-7 — and that Oklahoma State team went on to finish 1-11. All six of UT Martin’s wins came against OVC opponents. They’re built to beat OVC teams, and they do it well.
The offseason brought a lot of turnover to the program. Keyshawn Johnson, the Skyhawks’ best defensive player and a 2025 AP FCS All-American, transferred to Syracuse. Simpson signed 47 new faces to fill the gaps, including Jamauri Brice — the nephew of former NFL All-Pro Vic Beasley — who redshirted at Georgia Tech without seeing the field but was a highly coveted recruit coming out of high school and gives UT Martin a legitimate weapon at receiver if he can translate that talent to the college game.