Well, apparently practice does make perfect, or at least something close.

Remember those third-and-short running woes at WVU? Me neither. The Mountaineers did, though, and in the offseason highlighted that a few critical areas that let them down in 2008.

So far they’ve run on 11 third downs when they needed three yards or fewer to get a first down. They’ve picked it up 10 times. 1o!  Conversely, they’re 5-for-6 passing on third-and-short with three first downs.

No secret, but certainly a key to the 4-1 success is WVU’s ability to maintain possession — despite the oft chronicled tournover trouble. The Mountaineers are No. 12 in third-down conversion percentage, No. 19 in time of possession and average about 15 more snaps a game than they did a year ago.

“We wanted to make sure we’d have a balanced attack,” Stewart said. “What got us last year is short yardage on offense and we could not get off the field on defense. We had 54 snaps a game. You can’t win like that. We won nine games, but we’d like to win more and to do that you’d better stay on the field.”