First it was John Marinatto solidifying his Big East and its future by acquiring Texas Christian University from the Mountain West Conference.

Then WVU athletic director Oliver Luck looked to the left to find his new offensive coordinator and next head coach, Dana Holgorsen, he of stunning stints at Texas Tech, Houston and Oklahoma State.

In announcing the decision, Luck offered a nod to Marinatto and TCU, which just finished a 13-0 season and beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl to finish No. 2 in the polls.

“Eventually, the road to the Big East Championship will go through Fort Worth,” Luck said at the time the expansion was announced. “We need to be prepared to go ahead and beat a team like TCU on the road to claim a Big East championship and get to national championship consideration.

“The addition of TCU is going to raise the bar for all of us in the Big East.”

Loud and clear … and here comes Pitt, first going a little outside its perimeter to hire Mike Haywood. His last three coaching jobs before leaving Miami (Ohio) to be fired at Pitt were at LSU, Texas and Notre Dame.

His replacement? Todd Graham, a Texas guy who made his name in high school coaching there, and then after a stop at WVU climbed from the defensive coordinator position at Tulsa to be the head coach at Rice and Tulsa.

There are common threads to all of this and you’ll see it play out in the Big “East” very soon.

Graham runs a unique high-powered offense that comes right out of the OK Corral.

“What you can expect is a no-huddle team, not just offense. We will operate extremely fast and with high octane. We will be the most explosive team in the country,” he said.

It is not the kind of spread offense that West Virginia will run.

“There is a lot of misconception about our offense. It is not a spread. We will run and we will throw. We are a two-back offense 70 percent of the time. We will be physical, and you can’t be physical without a fullback and tight end,” Graham said.

What they will be mostly, however, is fast.

“We want speed, then explosive power, but I’d list speed three times before explosive power,” he said.

Like Holgorsen, Graham is hired to compete with TCU, to bring in his own brand of western football and, perhaps, Texas recruiting.

He is also being hired to beat West Virginia. Matching wits with Holgorsen is something he has done before in two memorable games, Graham losing to Holgorsen’s Houston team in 2009 by a 46-45 score and then being buried in 2008, 70-30.

“We had some great battles,” Graham said at his introductory press conference. “He’s a great coach and a great offensive mind. I’m looking forward to it.”