This is fun: Suppose WVU wins its season-opener against Marshall and avoids an upset against the open week the following Saturday. The early season schedule is filled with tough games for top-1o teams in the first two weeks.

Quite likely, the currently 11th-ranked Mountaineers saunter into the party at FedEx Field Sept. 15 as a top-10 team. WVU hasn’t been a top-10 team in exactly 47 months.

So, how has this happened?

Certainly the number next to the school’s name today has a whole lot to do with the number next to the school’s name the last time it played a game. Seventy points in a BCS game tends to have a lasting impact.

Yet here we are so many months later and college football people are smart enough to know that was one game on one night a long time ago and what happened in Miami Gardens, Fla., has just about nothing to do with what happens … well, now.

That’s not entirely correct, though. The Mountaineers won’t soon shake that reputation, but they ought not shake what was needed to develop it. What preceded the game that preceded this thick hype is what has to precede the regular season.

In WVU’s final six Big East games, the point differential was minus-12. If you’re like my wife and struggle with simple math, the Orange Bowl point differential was plus-37.

Holgorsen wants to see that growth replicated this August with a band of newcomers added the mix.

“You have about 15 practices in December, you have 15 practices in the spring and you have 15 practices (this month) prior to getting ready for a game,” Holgorsen said. “We made as much progress in the spring as we did in December, so the goal of camp is to make as much progress heading into a game week as we did last spring and last December.”