USA TODAY International Edition
West Virginia sends notice: It’s a legitimate contender
LUBBOCK, TEXAS At points during this past winter, members of West Virginia’s strength and conditioning staff would ask the Mountaineers’ seniors to stand up individually and give the buzzwords they thought would define this coming season.
Fighting, some would say. Blue- collar, said others. Toughness. Passion. It’s no coincidence that these clichés, used to define the Mountaineers as a whole, also might be used to represent the ethos of the entire state.
“It’s the same stuff we base this state off of,” senior quarterback Skyler Howard said.
This helps to provide another example of how the perception of West Virginia does not match the reality, but that’s long been the case. The perception: WVU is finesse, rooted in the Air Raid system, at times porous on defense, prone to hitting highs — as in 2012, when 5- 0 morphed painfully into 7- 6 — before tumbling to painful lows.
The reality, on the other hand, is that the Mountaineers, again 5- 0 after a 48- 17 win at Texas Tech, are as physical a team as can be found in the Big 12 Conference. The reality is that the team has increasingly embraced this mentality during Dana Holgorsen’s five seasons.
The even stronger reality is that, after playing its “best game of the year ... one hell of a team win,” per Holgorsen, WVU is wholly deserving of a spot inside the top 20 of this week’s Amway Coaches Poll. The reality is that this team might be the league’s best and brightest hope of reaching the College Football Playoff.
“I don’t really get upset if teams don’t acknowledge that,” senior offensive lineman Tyler Orlosky said. “But I think once they get done playing us they know that.”
Oklahoma has two losses. So do TCU and Oklahoma State. Texas is again a disaster. There is a power vacuum atop the Big 12, a void the Mountaineers have filled to the surprise of seemingly everyone — except for themselves. That’s because WVU saw it coming, even if others didn’t.
This is what they’re saying about you, Holgorsen told his team during the offseason. Everybody thinks you’re average. They think we lost our defense. Use that as motivation, he said.
It’s a message WVU has used before, and not just under Holgorsen but under his predecessors, from Bill Stewart and Rich Rodriguez to Don Nehlen.
“I think that’s one that West Virginia can kind of hang their hat on,” Holgorsen said. “We’ve always been the underdog, way back to the 1980s. The state of West Virginia is used to having a chip on its shoulder and being counted out. I think our team thrives on that.”
There was no epiphany, no bolt- of- lightning moment to awaken the program. The Mountaineers’ unblemished start instead has roots that date to almost exactly a year ago, after a brutal four- game losing streak during the month of October against Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor and TCU.
Written off for the 2015 season — and as top- 25 contenders, rightfully so — the Mountaineers won five of six to end the year. The byproduct wasn’t just confidence: WVU entered the winter with complete certainty that it held the right blueprint to charge at the Big 12 title.
“I thought we were pretty close last year to being a 10- win team,” Holgorsen said.
Very little has changed. The offense still defies the national perception by running the ball as often as any team in the Big 12. The Mountaineers gained 332 yards on the ground against Texas Tech, the program’s third- most in a league game under Holgorsen’s direction.
The defense still makes the opposition work piecemeal, forcing offenses to bite at yardage rather than swallow big gains whole. The Red Raiders averaged just 4.9 yards per play Saturday, well below their season average. The team’s 17 points were its fewest in a game since 2014.
As a whole, the Mountaineers “find a way to keep battling,” defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said.
“I don’t think we’re a whole lot different than we’ve been the last couple of years,” Holgorsen said.
And the blueprint works, with Saturday’s win as the strongest evidence to date. The Red Raiders entered Saturday averaging 55.2 points and 544 passing yards per game, both tops in the Football Bowl Subdivision. The Mountaineers held Tech to just 17 points, the program’s fewest in a game under fourth- year coach Kliff Kingsbury, and Heisman Trophy hopeful Patrick Mahomes to 305 yards through the air.
After several close games, a 31point win at Texas Tech does validate the program’s confidence. It also serves as a wake- up call: WVU looks like a legitimate contender.
In true West Virginia fashion, however, don’t look for this team to embrace the hype. But don’t be surprised: West Virginia isn’t.
“What the media says, what other people think about us and the recognition we’re starting to get doesn’t really affect anything we do on the field,” Howard said. “We’re just going to go out there and play our game. This is a team that doesn’t quit fighting. We’re going to fight until the end.”