Saturday’s soggy scrimmage at Mountaineer Field was hard to read, especially for the first one. Surely everyone would have preferred sunshine, no wind and a temperature in the 70s, but WVU did what it could with what it had.

There was an inauspicious start, some early frustrations, performance compromised by the conditions and finally a breakthrough. In the end, there was an acceptable amount of errors and a clear understanding of how the weather wrinkled some plans, but Bill Stewart was nevertheless pleased with the day and the progress.

And once again, the players spoke about how palatable this offense is and, at last and in fun and informative detail, why they believe they’ve developed so quickly and in such depth.

“This is a lot easier,” McCartney said. “With Coach Mullen, we had a lot more plays and we were changing things up during the week based on the defense we were playing. Coach Holgorsen has just one mindset – we do what we want to and we role with it.”

In addition to a thinner playbook, Holgorsen offers another significant advantage.

“We’ve only got to learn one position,” slot receiver Tavon Austin said. “Last year, I had to know three positions on the field and I had to know every route. Now I’m only repping one. It’s not that hard to learn one position.”