… that was the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. Seventy points? In the BCS? It’s going to be after 5 in the morning when I post this, so I’ve had plenty of time to think things through overnight (TFGD on Friday!). That’s at the top of the list of the surreal things I’ve covered. I thought WVU v. Kentucky in 2010 was going to be hard to beat — remember how crazy that first half was?

It was beaten. To a … pulp?

(P.S. Daily Mail coverage — and we’re over 30 stories this week — is stacked again. Find us here.)

I look back now and WVU was so confident and nonchalant in our media interactions before the game that it should have been a more affirmative indication of their focus and preparedness than it was. I swear, it was Da’Sean Butler promising me WVU would beat Missouri in 2010 … and then telling me exactly how.

Last night, the defense sniffed out a lot of stuff before it happened and those two turnovers at the end of the first half were literally things the players said would happen. They said Tajh forced passes when he was frustrated. They said he exposed the ball when he ran. Offensively, lots of checks and just a long list of moments when WVU paused, communicated and either won the down or forced Clemson to do something to get out of whatever it was in that the offense spotted.

The Mountaineers were very, very ready and they were just wildly, ridiculously better. They turned a primetime showcase into Laugh-In.

We probably need time to absorb and digest and appreciate and project … but I ask you to come up with a better finish to a season — one rooted in reality, I mean. There were a lot of hurdles and pitfalls this season, but WVU just destroyed an ACC team and scored the most points EVER in a bowl game. A BCS game. On ESPN and wholly unopposed. Serious, when Mr. Luck pushed the chips to the middle in December/June, I think he was too smart to ever, ever envision that.

Well, that just happened. Remember “Results matter?” How the hell do you counter that except to say, “Uh, yeah, we set a record for setting records” right now? You can’t. Unbelievable, really.

More stuff:

– Dabo Swinney saw a ghost. I only saw the replay of some of the press conference, but he looked just spooked.

– Dana Holgorsen looked like he’d made a bagel. He was happy because, hey, he made a bagel, but bagels are ordinary and eventually the norm. And this bagel had chives in it and no one else had tasted one before. For him, nothing to be terribly excited about now. He just wanted more of them.

– WVU did everything it had to do to win. No one had a bad game. Stars had great games. Second-tier guys (Brown, Milhouse, Barber, Miller, etc.) had great games. Fill-ins were on par and above. Buie was fine. Tonkery played really well. Even Alston handled 19 carries just fine. There were just four penalties, only one turnover and, by my entirely unofficial tally, three negative yardage plays before the knees at the end. Geno, Stedman and Tavon were sharp, the offense was 10-for-16 on third down, the defense did more than enough, special teams were solid. On and on it goes.

– Darwin Cook tackled Obie.

“Obie doubted us, too, so I had to tackle him,” Cook said.

It was then when I informed him that Obie is actually a woman.

“Yeah, I found that out at the end. I apologized to her,” Cook siad.

– Clemson totally and almost inexcusably abandoned the run. I know it was 70-33 and it was a rout in the second half, but two things stand out:

1) Andre Ellington had 10 carries and more than 100 yards.

2) The sequence at the end of the first half lost Clemson the game. I’m serious: WVU knew Boyd would force a pass there and he did. I know hindsight is undefeated, but Chad Morris, though he probably wanted a score at the end of the first half, needed to say “OK, 35-20 at the half … let’s get to the locker room.” He did not and the score was 49-20 instead.

I suspect he knew his defense was in peril, though.

Still, going away from the run mattered.

“They’ve got good skill guys,” defensive end Bruce Irvin said. “They probably have a better group of skill guys than we do. But we got up and Casteel told us we’re going to rush three and drop eight and we’ve got to get there. Me and Julian and Will Clarke and Jorge tried our best and busted our butts to get back there and make something happen, and we did.”

– There were discussions between a few players about scoring 70 points … but also 100.

– Irvin said Clemson’s left tackle, Philip Price, fired him up a little bit at a bowl function Tuesday night — before Price had a knee and missed most of the game.

“He was talking a lot of trash at dinner,” Irvin said.

– I’d be stunned if Jeff Casteel came back, but, man, his guys love him. That one would hurt a good bit inside the locker room. And, again, it might not happen. Casteel just doesn’t give you any indication. His defense always get better at the end. Wednesday was a good night for him, no matter what happens next.

– WVU thought the game was over way, way before you did.

“As a defense, we studied Clemson very well the past month and I think we did a good job preparing for them,” said safety Eain Smith, who had a game-high 12 tackles. “What we saw on film was when Clemson gets down, they have no fight left in them. That’s exactly what we saw (Wednesday).

“I saw it when Cook took that fumble back. I saw their body language go way down immediately. I looked at their faces and I looked at the sideline and I saw their body language and I knew they didn’t want to play the game.”

– Stedman Bailey had a good explanation for WVU’s success: “Even when we were up big, we kept telling each other, ‘Let’s pretend we’re down seven.'”

– Boy, Dana doesn’t like people banging on the Big East.

“Well, I’ve got two comments on that. One, and I’ve only been here a year, I know, but West Virginia has won three BCS games in the last six years, which is a pretty good track record. And West Virginia has been in the Big East for the last six years last time I checked. So I think that’s a pretty good track record.

“And then going through the Big East schedule one year, we had some pretty tough games. We lost a couple of those and then the ones that we won were tough. So the product at West Virginia was out there. There was a lot of teams in the Big East that gave us all we wanted.”

That philosophy, like so many others, trickles down in the locker room.

“I think the Big East has better defenses than people think,” said left tackle Don Barclay, who played really well and without much help … perhaps all season. “We faced some good defenses and great players in the Big East. It’s hard sometimes in this conference. Week in and week out, the competition prepares you for a team like this.”

I think the players pay a ton of attention to Dana.

– Jake Spavital thought the offense was pretty good.

“If you go back and look the interviews we had at at the start of the year to now, we’ve always had issues with turning the ball over, with taking sacks, with making the wrong check, with doing the things that come with playing in our system,” he said. “Tonight Geno had his best game making checks. He took care of the ball and scrambled well and did everything we asked and pretty much put it all togehter at once.”

Asked if this was his best game, Eu replied, “So far.”

– I lied earlier. There were 17 voters for MOP. Geno beat Tavon 10-7.

“Tavon Austin is the real MVP tonight,” Smith said. “I can’t say enough about that guy.”

– Finally, WVU absolutely believes it’s going to pursue a national title next season. The players have no doubts.

– Actually … finally … put your ribbon on this. It’s been a whale of a ride since we first met Dana in December of 2010. From there to now, can you encapsulate your feelings? How about this? Begin in the “Results matter” press conference and retrace your steps and remember your emotions up until now.

Where are you?