… Athletic Director Oliver Luck called Bill Stewart to his office and told Stewart there would be a change atop the football program. WVU was 7-3 overall and 3-2 in the Big East and had just beaten Cincinnati a day earlier. WVU is 7-3 overall and 3-2 in the Big East and just beat Cincinnati.

Let’s not pretend things are the same. Let’s not pretend a lot hasn’t changed. I’m curious how you feel a year later. Completely open to your thought, but let’s avoid the back-and-forth in the comments. There is no right or wrong. I’m interested in what people think a year later, as opposed to what people think about what other people think a year later.

Me?

I hate that it happened the way it happened. I don’t have a problem with the change. It’s not my business, though I didn’t things were working out with Stewart in charge.

I think the man whose business it was, Oliver Luck, saw a guy he wanted, knew Dana Holgorsen was available, thought Holgorsen could fix what ailed WVU football and made it happen.

I think the coach-in-waiting model is finished and I think it was a reach to think it would work, but I think it was undone by something Luck couldn’t predict in even his most pessimistic moment.

I think the finances and the contracts and all those other business and financial variables don’t matter much to me. I know they’re impossible to ignore, but I think, to an extent, it’s impossible to not incur them, either.

I think Dave Johnson and Jeff Mullen deserved to be treated better and I hope both of them do extraordinarily well for however long they coach. I had a head coach tell me once coaching is a karma business.

I think we’re going to see more change than static.

I think Dana Holgorsen is going to be a very good head coach. I think it’s expecting a lot of a 40-year-old guy in his first head coaching job to be in that first season what he might be in his fifth or 10th. I think Dana has had problems that are probably fairly typical for a first-year guy, too. I think Dana knows that, too.

I think first-year guys can X and O with the best of them as a coordinator and that skill can transition to the head coaching position, but I think arranging and managing 100 or so personalities is a totally new challenge that is so very hard to prepare for. It’s easier to motivate six quarterbacks or 12 linebackers than it is 120 players.

And finally, I think WVU’s football program is in a better position. I don’t know the destination. I think the journey is going to be more difficult in the Big 12 and it won’t look, feel and cost the same. I just feel like there’s a level of competence on board now that wasn’t here the previous three years, but was here before that, when the Mountaineers were stalking Big East and national championships.