“Something festive more than anything. I would challenge you to find one coach across the country that gets a kick out of the spring game. You got to do it. We want to do it for the fans. The players get a kick out of it, because they get to put their nice uniforms on, and they go out there in front of a bunch of people and try to make a play. It’s the end of spring, and you want to get out healthy. We want it to be festive, and we want everyone to kind of get a glimpse of the younger kids more than anything.”

Check that out. Does that make you uncontrollably excited about the spring game? Does that make you want to brave the weather and press your luck against a 60 percent chance of rain to see a game that’s supposed to be for you, but is instead really about letting also-rans get some burn while getting Geno and Tavon and Stedman on and off the field with haste and without incident?

Look, some spring games are just terrible. (“Jeremy Johnson, playing for Team Red, completed 7 of 17 passes for 55 yards with a pass tipped twice and then intercepted by Bridge City product Colby Carpenter.”) But some can be fun if you try to make them fun.

A bunch of people have asked me what I’m thinking about Saturday. “Thinking rain, at least overcast,” is my reply. I really don’t know what to say because the spring “game” is a misnomer. It’s practice 15 and it might be watered down because the Mountaineers, like many teams, don’t want things getting out for others to see.

That, more than anything else, is why there are only brief portions of practice open to the media. It’s crazy to think someone in an office at some Big 12 school isn’t checking up on WVU, whether  in print or on video. You have to limit what is exposed, be it in a practice or in a spring game.

I think Dana’s a pretty good salesman — witness his players buying in last year or all the positive reports from the national media this spring — but for me, it’s been hard to get a read on things. I wasn’t there, but one scrimmage started and a few plays were executed before the media got the boot. The second was closed and performed before a coaching clinic. Today’s practice and media session with assistant coaches were both blacked out, save for a few more national writers who, to be fair, were scheduled to be here previously.

Dana also seemed … bummed out Tuesday and kind of over a six-week spring schedule — remember, many teams go five times a week for three weeks and get the 15 done fast. Holgorsen will go three times across five weeks, but he had spring break pop up in the middle of this one.

It’s longer than most definitions of normal at WVU and this year is longer than WVU’s definition of normal.

So perhaps that explains this from Tuesday:

“In spring, you are not preparing for an opponent, and the guys get tired of doing the same thing. They are tired of practice, and they are tired of going against each other and all that stuff. The guys that really truly love the game are the ones that can push through it. So you start separating some guys that think football is just fun and guys that it really means something to which is kind of where we are at now.”

Hmm. Later, and just four days before people are coming to see the improved offense, Dana would ask the media to write “all kinds of bad stuff about the offense” because, clearly, he’s underwhelmed by what’s happening late in the spring.

Guys read the papers and the websites nowadays. It’s harder and harder to avoid that now, particularly when some people choose to be so close to the players they cover,  so, sure, control the message. I think Dana was serious about that because he doesn’t like how the defense, which is supposed to be behind the offense, is doing better than and sometimes getting the better of his offense, which is supposed to be pretty much fine-tuning:

“Defense is probably making a whole lot more improvement then the offense is. Offense is starting to get a little complacent. I don’t know if they are reading too much about how good they are or what, but they are getting a little complacent, and the defense is flying around and making some plays.”

Surely, that won’t happen Saturday, when, let’s face it, everyone is coming to see the 70-points-in-a-BCS-game offense. Right?

“If I were to guess, I would fast forward to the spring game, and I would say the defense will probably play pretty good and offense will go out there and think they are good and go through the motions and not get any better. That would be my guess.”