I can’t remember one deep pass against Texas. Never mind one completion. One pass. I remember a handful of attempts — probably in or just outside the range of six or eight attempts Dana Holgorsen says he prescribed — against Texas Tech, but I know just one of them was a winner. I don’t remember one vertical throw against Kansas State. Again, never mind completion. Attempt.

I may be wrong there, and Lord knows my attention waned as the outcome was obvious and deadline was imminent, but the point remains: Something West Virginia was very good at in the first four games — and in truth, it’s probably five as the Mountaineers profess that they chose to go to the gun fight in Austin without that particular weapon — has vanished.

Whether by design or by defense (or whether by weather?), WVU isn’t throwing and completing deep passes like it did with such regularity and success early this season.

Holgorsen says, again, it’s not the schemes. The same plays are being called. The same players just aren’t making the same plays. That seems plausible, and there are detailed explanations for why the deep pass has been missing the past three games, but that vertical throw is part of the repertoire and it has to reemerge is the results are to change.

“I believe you’ve got to at least attempt to throw it down the field a handful of times every game,” said quarterbacks coach Jake Spavital. “When I was (a graduate assistant) at Tulsa, we had a motto – we were going to take at least 10 shots a game.

“Here with Dana, it depends on the flow of the game, but we believe we have to take our shots seven or eight times and throw it vertical down the field to get the cornerbacks running and get them to spread the field a little more.”