Teammates and coaches were very impressed by what Geno Smith did in the second half Saturday. He made great reads. He threw accurate passes. He shrunk the time between snaps and added an accelerated pace the team needed and the team fed off of as it erupted in the third quarter.

This was turning point kind of stuff, some whispered, because to that point WVU hadn’t understood how to play fast, but had suddenly seen what that speed could do in that system.

That system, Smith knew, had been very good at three previous schools. Through parts of two games, it wasn’t all that good at WVU. So Smith said what was on his mind. He burned ears and opened eyes and facilitated what happened after halftime.

This wasn’t the generic sort of halftime lecture about playing harder and wanting it more in the second half. This was personal.

Coach Dana Holgorsen’s prodigious offense that had worked through the years at Texas Tech and Houston and Oklahoma State wasn’t working with WVU and Smith told the players they were the reason why.

“The one thing that he said that stuck out most to everyone was when he said this system has been successful for 10 years and we’re the team that is not being successful,” McCartney said.

“We have the same system, so it’s not the system. It’s us. We looked at it like if this system has been successful for 10 years, then we need to make the changes and make the system successful.”

The Mountaineers scored on their first seven drives in the second half before running out the clock on the eighth. They managed five touchdowns in 20 plays in the third and fourth quarters and needed just 6 minutes, 47 seconds off the clock to do it.

“The truth hurts,” McCartney said, “but we needed to hear it to get past what happened in the first half.”