Welcome to the Friday Feedback, where the house never wins. Previously irrelevant, and now sadly topical, a side story to start  here today:

One picture I think I had to leave Mount Pleasant with was of Dana Holgorsen’s childhood home. I don’t necessarily know if that was true before the start of my trip, but it was by the end, mostly because it was so hard to find.

Really, it was not as easy as you would think. Nobody seemed to know or remember and nobody could pull up a document and find it for me. Perhaps lazily, I thought that would be the case after earlier efforts came up empty … and at the time, that didn’t concern me because I wasn’t writing about the house. I was writing about Mount Pleasant and one of its four most famous exports.

As background, let’s look through the prism as it was before Wednesday, before Manti Te’o happened and when things were not as closely scrutinized as they are now, some 48 hours later.

I didn’t have to have the picture, so it’s not like I went to great lengths to find an address. I threw out a large net and was probably hoping it would find me. Sights and landmarks and football fields and the like were most significant. But, probably because I’m a head case, I really wanted to get the house because it was so hard to get.

Without naming names, I asked a lot of people and a lot of very obvious options, but not everyone, like Dana’s parents or brothers, though my hunch is Holgorsen would prefer to keep them out of things like this. Also, they no longer live there. They’ve moved.

So, no, I wasn’t writing about the house, but I was getting frustrated. Nobody knew an address and nobody could produce a record. And, yes, that made me wonder if I was supposed to find it or not.

Short story shorter, Dana’s actually a very private person and, let’s be honest, the public and the role of a very public figure hasn’t been completely kind to him. Still, my experiences with him have made me feel he doesn’t really like this sort of attention, or at least looks into a past that might not really explain the present, and he wants you to believe him when he says his was a simple youth and there was nothing outstanding or notable to feature. He’s just a guy from a town.

I left Mount Pleasant believing my feeling was more true than I had before.

So then what if I found out he had lived in the town’s version of The Cow House? What if there were no windows? What if it was a silo? Or shaped like a football? What if it was a van down by the river?

People knew it was on a corner and opposite an apartment complex and in a specific neighborhood. They knew the colors and the siding and the frame and that the backyard was “big enough to raise three boys,” but there was no address and usually no street name. I got enough street names to not believe one over another.

Believe it or not, in a small town with about 9,000 people, the kind tips from kind people didn’t narrow it down enough to get a location. I did some cursory searches online and couldn’t find anything, though I honestly and obviously didn’t go to great technical lengths. I found an old phone book, but not old enough to go back to when the Holgorsens lived wherever they lived.

I could live without the picture, but, man, to go all the way there and get beat by something I didn’t think would bother me? Nope.

Thankfully, Bob Jensen, the MPHS football coach and athletic director, knew how to get there from the high school — and this was part of the problem. Holgorsen’s high school is now the library. The current high school is a few miles and turns away. Some people were giving me ways to get to his house  from the high school, but they were using both high schools as the origin.

And then there’s the obvious for people who no longer live there: What was easy for people to describe before was complicated so many years later.

Yet Jensen, who is a treat, penned the above map for me, taking me from the high school, down a main road, through a turn, across one intersection and, hopefully, into Holgorsen’s old driveway.

Perfect coaching.

I was soon at the house that matched the amalgamation of descriptions. I snapped a few pictures, drew a slight crowd of dog-walkers, hopped back in my car — Missouri plates are a red flag in a small town in southeast Iowa — and drove away.

I was working against the clock, too. That was my last task of the day and then I was headed back north to Ames for the basketball game, which was the reason I was on the ground in Iowa. Hey, Chuck? It’s Caz. Listen, I’m going to miss the first half because I didn’t leave Mount Pleasant until 6:30. … No, I found the house, but it took forever. … No, I’m not writing about the house. … Good point.

So I was telling some people some stories Wednesday night and explaining the thing about the house and two people said, “Are you sure it’s the house?” No, I was not. No, I wouldn’t use it if I wasn’t positive. I’d look into it, like I’d look into some of the anecdotes people told me. My battle wasn’t over.

Thursday afternoon, I received visual confirmation from a bulletproof source. It was Dana’s house. Can’t tell you what I would have done if it wasn’t.

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, let it roll.

JC said:

You have to admire the lack of effort put into these Manti stories by all media outlets. Its amazing how much reporting can be done on others’ reporting……..eh?

I’m sensitive, sometimes very, about the way people criticize the media, but I can’t disagree with this one point. A writer isn’t right because he wrote what someone else reported. This isn’t a co-op, you know? You put your name on these things. I think a lot of the time we’re all guilty of wanting to believe the story, which makes me extremely hesitant to believe that Te’o was a victim. That’s the feel-good ending not long after we all were made to believe a feel-good story. I don’t want to step into the middle of this and yell “LOOK AT ME,” but this is what I do for a living. I write about facts, or things I believe to be or am told are facts. I’m also the author of a book with more than 100,000 words and 300 pages and a ton of facts, many of which were based off previously written and reported facts. Fact-checking is a bitch to the point you find yourself going great distances to find out if it’s Snakes or Snakers. 

overtheSEC said:

Did you hear that Manti Teo walked at his graduation AND got his diploma? At least that’s what his dad, The South Bend Tribune, CBS, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun Times, The New York Times, The Sporting News, The Boston Globe, The Associated Press, The Miami Herald, Yahoo and NBC Sports all told me

Hmm. I’ll allow it! It fit with the week’s wonderful meme. I guess I’m troubled by this on a lot of levels, be it as a human, a sports fan, a reporter, a story-teller or a friend of some of the people involved. I’m mad and sad and for all sorts of reasons.

jtmountaineer said:

Manti Teo needs to apologize to the woman he has hurt most of all, Oprah Winfrey, whose yet-to-air Lance Armstrong interviews are fading quickly into irrelevance.

Oprah is on a titanium bike pedaling as fast as she can to South Bend. And, my goodness, what endurance she has! What recuperative powers! It’s as though she has help!

Patchy said:

It’s a most delicious irony that a egomaniac who named a magazine after herself and puts her photo on every cover of every issue has been pushed into irrelevancy by an imaginary person.

Scrumptious.

Rugger said:

The Te’o jokes are funny but let’s keep in mind that a person who never existed is dead.

 This, of all things, is true. 

Bobby Heenan said:

On pregame radio interview Huggs heavily implies he wants to go inside early and make their bigs guard us or get them in foul trouble. He wants to see them have to go to their bench to guard us.

So take a deep breath, and prepare for awkward Murray post moves and your fill of Deniz.

Or not. And that’s the consistent aggravation this year. WVU is one of the big teams in the league. Huggins has wanted, again and again, to play big and get inside shots and shorten the other team’s bench. Yet his team just is not good enough with a big lineup. Also, let’s keep an eye on Aaric Murray, OK? Doesn’t look like Wednesday’s loss went down very well. Or did it and he’s inspired? (NSFW?). 

netbros said:

When asked by a caller on his weekly radio show January 17th if Aaric Murray would be back next year, Coach Huggins intimated that Murray would graduate this spring and the plan was for him to go pro (somewhere, not necessarily NBA).

That would seem to solve the scholarship numbers situation with four new incoming recruits for next year.

OK, we don’t have enough context to gauge his mood from the linked-to Tweet above, but I think we can agree he is looking to move on sooner rather than later. And really, that’s been the plan from the start. You just wonder if Murray will listen to the advice he gets or if he’s just determined to be done with college.   

Josh24601 said:

You just can’t ever throw Dom the ball… or have him be in position to rebound it… or be in the same half of the floor with the ball really. And there’s no suitable substitute for his minutes. Rough.

Every touch is an adventure. But don’t worry. It’s over. Huggins is putting that chemistry kit back in the box and on the shelf. Small ball, commence!

avb31 said:

How can you continue to play Deniz when you can tell that he just doesn’t give a crap? I’d rather watch Gerun and Noreen bumble around out there than watch Kilicli play anymore.

Wednesday night was maybe the most visible example of this. He was good on two possessions, and he tried to get it a few other times, but the three seconds and the offensive foul affected him. He moved too much and jostled too little and no one could, or would, pass it to him. 

Sam said:

Why is guarding an inbounder illegal? Why was Murray getting moved off the line? I don’t know if I’ve ever been more mystified by a confrontation that the announcers immediately moved on from.

It’s not illegal, but you just can’t be reaching over the line before play starts. And Murray was. The official told him to stop and back up and Murray kinda-sorta obliged, but used a few words that the official didn’t like. I thought he was going to throw a technical out. He made this wild motion with his arms, and in the moment, I’m wonder if Murray thought he got a T and jumped and strode away in disbelief like he does quite a bit. The official can’t make him run 20 fee away. Very weird and it bothered Huggins a whole lot. He didn’t see all of it and was screaming, “What was that?” Perhaps the offended official made the exaggerated motion as a way to demand Murray listen and move back and Murray misinterpreted it and thought he was made to move. 

The 25314 said:

WVU football has no WVU grads on its coaching staff. When is the last time that happened?

Whew, good question. Predates Nehlen’s years. I don’t have the necessary resource with me, but it might be during the Cignetti years.

Mack said:

Does the Daily Mail deliver in Morgantown? Never thought about it, but that surprises me.

Doesn’t deliver in the traditional on-your-doorstep-in-the-morning sense, but it does circulate in Morgantown. Somewhat. I have the list of places that should have them. It’s rubbish. A few places have said they’ve never had the paper there. You know how you fix that? Make your voice heard.

JC said:

12-6 to finish and get a NCAA birth……we got this
{hurls self out of window}

Update: 12-5.

jtmountaineer said:

I’m optimistic about this team’s play after the last two games. What prevents me from feeling starry-eyed about tourney prospects is that they have bad losses, which no number of wins, save possibly two over Kansas, can erase or counteract. That’s what was so nice about the Huggins teams his first few years: you could always count on no bad losses. Not one. I’m defining bad to mean a team you should beat by 8+ points.

What arches my brow is WVU, if it remains on whatever pace this is and doesn’t disintegrate, is on pace for a top 75 RPI and top 30 SOS. Weird. Need to stay way above .500 at home, get a top 100 win here very soon (0-8) and probably sweep TCU and Texas Tech … and people have warned me teams just forget to play in Lubbock. 

rekterx said:

Still no guards?

We haven’t had anything that resembles a consistent guard since Darris Nichols put on the uni. Mazz was gritty, resourceful, smart and certainly had his highlight moments. But Huggs didn’t recruit either one of those guys. Even the Final Four team needed two NBA quality forwards to bring the ball up the court.

What is the deal with Bob Huggins and guards … or the lack of them? Seriously.