Dana Holgorsen had something interesting to say Monday about competing against Baylor, which was an extension of a conversation about competing against all these Big 12 Conference offenses.

“If you think we’re going to shut them down, you’re nuts.”

Put that on you’re welcome mat at Mountaineer Field!

This is a new place, and I’m not telling you anything new, but teams with bad defenses can win with great offenses — ask 2011 Oklahoma State and Baylor.

That national stat sheet I study every Sunday morning that ranks offenses and defenses and individuals in a bunch of categories? It’s the same, but the relevance is changing and I’m advised to pay less attention to some things and more to others.

“You measure success on defense differently now than you used to,” DeForest said. “Ultimately you want to win the game and you’d like to hold them to a certain amount of points, but you’re going to give up some things. Can you get off the field before they score? Can you turn them over before they score? Can you force them to kick field goals instead of letting them score touchdowns?”

The Mountaineers don’t want the opposing offense to move the ball, but they know it’s going to happen. If they give up one or two third down conversions, they want to stop the next one. If they don’t get a stop on third down, they want to get a turnover. If they can’t get the turnover before the offense gets into the red zone, they want to stand up and force a field goal instead of allowing a touchdown.

“If you can hold them to field goals, you’re going to win a lot of games,” DeForest said.

Understandable, and eventually the Mountaineers want to evolve in such a way that sees them blocking those field goals. But that’s a complicated skill off in the horizon. What’s in front of the Mountaineers today is a simple skill that can fix a lot of things on any defense.

Tackling.

Put simply, WVU wasn’t good at it in the first game and was a little better in the second game. The third game, to be quite honest, seemed worse than the second.

WVU went from reporting 26 missed tackles against Marshall to 17 missed tackles against James Madison. Guess how many co-defensive coordinator Keith Patterson said the Mountaineers missed against Maryland.