Pat Forde’s Dash and Minutes column has been the best running column on the Web, I say, for quite some time — way before he clubbed the WVU media for mishandling the P-Rod-to-Alabama debacle 21 months ago — and here are two reasons why.

Take the 2008 debut of the Forde Yard Dash that included great moments in headset history and one submission by The Product.

What happened: Rodriguez called an incredibly gutsy fake punt on fourth-and-6 near midfield in the fourth quarter while clinging to a three-point lead. He called it from field level and asked for confirmation that the Bulldogs’ formation was susceptible to the fake.

“I said on the headphones, ‘Do we got it? Hello? Hello? Anybody there?'” Rodriguez recalled.

Nobody in the press box wanted to stick his neck out and sign off on such a risky play. But the Mountaineers ran it anyway and it worked. They never gave the ball back to Georgia and won 38-35.

Needless to say, this raised many an incredulous eyebrow and Forde dutifully followed up in this week’s Dash.

Last week, The Dash told a few memorable headset conversations related by coaches. One of them turned out to be apocryphal.

Rich Rodriguez’s reminiscence about hearing nothing from his assistants on the headsets when he called the memorably bold fake punt for West Virginia in the 2006 Sugar Bowl was a joke. The reality of the situation was relayed to The Dash last week by Tulsa assistant coach Herb Hand (31), who was an assistant with the Mountaineers then.

According to Hand, who was in the booth during that game, he reminded Rodriguez to look for the fake punt call. Bill Stewart (now the coach at WVU) chimed in that it had been open earlier in the game.

So when West Virginia faced its fateful fourth-and-6 near midfield against Georgia, clinging to a three-point lead, the West Virginia cognoscenti convened via headset. Butch Jones, now the coach at Central Michigan, told Rodriguez the play would work. Hand concurred, then asked offensive coordinator Calvin Magee to sign off on it as well. Rodriguez made the final call.

Hand, you’ll remember, was a the recruiting coordinator through the 2006-07 season and seemed to be about as close to P-Rod as anyone else. When Rick Trickett left following the Gator Bowl, Hand apparently wanted to be considered as a candidate for the offensive line coach. As the story goes, the reply was something along the lines of, “Well, it’s a pretty important position.” Hand was gone a short while later … as the offensive coordinator and offensive line coach at Tulsa.

Retribution?

To be honest, I really wanted to stay away from this last week and again this week, but I couldn’t resist the demand and the rather obvious problem here. What continues to amaze me is that with everything he’s been through, P-Rod simply hasn’t learned that people are paying attention to him.