Their sniper game was not on point this year like it was last year, and maybe that was an isolated incident last season or perhaps both realized it was a bad look and they didn’t need to wear it again. Whatever the case, absent that noise, I was compelled to look elsewhere and, though I’m not certain why, I truly started to think Kansas was going to win the game come Friday. (I have witnesses.)

Charlie Weis was on a mission with his message and WVU’s “I’ma let you finish, but Kansas is no joke” seemed genuine, which seemed unusual if you’d seen that team saunter through the season. The Mountaineers were carefully cautious about the Jayhawks and it seemed like Kansas was absolutely going to go with Montell Cozart and about 27 different run plays and, well, that started to sound like trouble.

The one thing I circled was the first quarter. WVU’s been terrible there, and this was the team’s first 11 a.m. CST start since joining the Big 12, whereas Kansas has been suspiciously competitive in the first half before collapsing in the second. At home, desperate for a win and putting a whole lot of stock into a game that, quietly, they’d been building toward with the way the offense and Cozart had been trending, the Jayhawks were more dangerous than they deserved to be.

And then they were terrific. Everything is relative, I know. Kansas wouldn’t have beaten Baylor or Oklahoma and I’m not sure it would have taken down TCU because, even in this lost season, TCU takes every play seriously. In the Mountaineers, the Jayhawks met their perfect foil. I’ll get into this in a little bit, but I have to think that game went about as well as it could have gone for Kansas, from WVU’s score at the start to the students ransacking the field at the finish. Honestly, it’s the sort of thing that can happen late in the season.

So why this picture? Well, Dana wears a damn clock on his wrist, and Weis just looks like he ate the canary. And no crow was served later. How did we get here? Let’s find out by taking a look at the good and the bad of WVU v. Kansas.

Good: Smack!
Oh, you’re burned, Mountaineers.

Bad: Iron pyrite
OK, let’s quiz the audience here. Raise your hand if you thought this was great for WVU. Interesting. Quite a few hands there. And now, raise your hand if you thought this was bad? Not that many, huh?

Allow me to explain.

A darn near perfect opening drive probably looked like the first of many touchdowns, but it was the first thing to go wrong for the Mountaineers. Based on what you saw for the next 57 minutes, 8 seconds, you won’t convince me that at this moment WVU didn’t think it was going to be easy the rest of the game and then realized too late that hunch was fatally incorrect.

WVU got ahead, got lazy, got sloppy and got beat. It wasn’t difficult to spot.

Dudes playing with NO heart out there Idc how many starters are out

— Douglas Rigg (@bigrigg47) November 16, 2013

Now having said that, that was a great drive. WVU did everything it wanted. It was dealt a blow when Quinton Spain lost his head for a moment and robbed Jordan Thompson of a certain touchdown, but the offense recovered, which it hasn’t done with great consistency, when Spain and Pat Eger sealed off a lane for Charles Sims to score on the next play. I’m OK with people saying that was a great start, because it was, but I want you to wonder if it came too easy and was therefore something the team wasn’t equipped to handle.

Bad: The matter of time
I don’t think Darwin Cook has been right for at least two games. I think a season of playing every snap and acting like a wrecking ball on the back end accumulates and that everything is accelerated as the season goes on. This was the end for Mr. Cook. It shook him up, as you can tell, and wonderfully named Jimmay Mundine is not small. But watch Cook here. He kind of walks through that hit. He’s a big, big hitter. He can be explosive. I mean, he cuts Mundine in half if this happens six weeks earlier, right? But here, he just bounces off and then falls to the ground and you sort of feel bad for him. (Side good: FSN camera angles!)

Bad: One of these days …
I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to a Big 12 game that isn’t greatly affected by the wind. This was ridiculous Saturday, as evidenced by these two throws. Yuck. But what happened after this? Kansas ran the ball like crazy and WVU asked Paul Millard to throw the ball like crazy. About that …

Good: First quarter
Millard was great in the first 15 minutes. He was 8-for-9 for 84 yards and the touchdown pass to Sims. Five of the completed passes and six of the attempts were to slot receivers and running backs. He made one vertical throw and only did it because he was scrambling on a third down and found Daikiel Shorts for 12 yards when he needed five. Everything else was on a leash, which is smart for two reasons. Well, let’s say three.

1) There was no need to test the wind. The wind isn’t going to change it’s game plan.
2) Millard is appreciably better when he’s making quick reads and throws. Short throws are in his bag. The story changes when he’s asked to stand in the pocket, wait for a route to develop and make longer throws. Longer throws are not in his bag because he gets jittery and his footwork and his arm aren’t consistent enough to pull those off again and again.
3) Looking and throwing to the side takes Millard’s eyes off the middle of the defense. It sure looks like Millard gets affected and flustered when he sees something in the middle, be it a twist, a stunt or a defender coming free.

What happens in the second quarter? Millard is asked to push the ball down the field. Kansas made some adjustments and backed out of a 3-4 and put a nickel back in the slot, which took away some of those quick throws, but that can’t unplug a game plan. Unless the counter is “Go deep up the rail.” That doesn’t work, either, and it was just a week earlier when Holgorsen said the outside passing game was “disgusting.” I counted two more screens and two more quick throws to a slot before the score reached 31-7. That game plan just disappeared, which seems to happen quite a bit. Millard was 6-for-11 for 84 yards in the second quarter and 46 yards came on a nice play to Alford that was aided by some missed tackles. But most of the time, when the ball went, say, eight yards up the field and with the wind, Millard struggled.

It’s odd to me that this was a problem in the 11th game. I know he was the only one available, but there are things he can do to win games.

Good: Alford
It’s hard to see here, but he runs a really nice route because he understood the defense. Shorts slants inside to take the linebacker and keep him from dropping back. The nickel back covers Dreamius Smith (Aside: Where was he?) in the flat. Alford has a lot of room in the zone, so he finds a hole near the first down marker and Millard gets the ball close enough that Alford can do something with it. Credit Alford for not settling on a catch. He tried to make a play. He and Sims played the whole game.

Bad: I’ll stop soon, I promise
Not to pick on Millard, but look at that throw. He sees guys coming up the middle and he puts it in reverse and biceps a ball that flutters to Alford, who had to come way out of his break to make the play. Millard was sacked twice, once on simple three-man pressure that was given far too long to get there, and another on four-man pressure with a twist outside to the inside. You saw what Texas did last week with some bluffs and some stunts and twists. Kansas bluffed a lot. Kansas didn’t blitz a whole lot, but used twists and stunts when it did. Some of it is an indictment of the offensive line, but Millard is also guilty of bad habits in the pocket. He pulls the chord too early sometimes, he gets caught with the ball too often and he throws retreating or flat-footed a lot.

Bad: I promise
This was supposed to be a screen to Sims. You can see the offensive linemen peel out to the right and you can see Sims slip out, only to be … well … taken down by the defensive lineman. That defensive lineman, though, stops and recognizes the screen and doesn’t chase Millard. Yet Millard bails and makes a really poor throw to Jordan Thompson. Thompson was leading his defender in man-to-man coverage and he was running into open space. I’m not sure he gets all 22 yards WVU needed for a first down, but he gets a bunch and it’s at worst a much easier third down. There was no reason for Millard to throw this the way he did. He had time to step up and step into a throw to his receiver.

Bad: Swing play I
There were two moments in the game that I thought were extremely bad omens for the Mountaineers. This was significant. It’s in the first quarter and it’s a simple throw outside to Thompson with a block from Kevin White, but White holds and erases a big play. It sets up a second-and-17 that preceded a punt. That was the first of five straight punts for WVU. It was also the first of two drive-killing penalties by White, the second being a pass interference. He also dropped a pass later in the game that was a little high, but was also something a 6-foot-4 guy should be catching. This late in the season, you have to say he’s still a very raw prospect.

While we’re here, Alford is a much, much better blocker than White. The outside runs and the screens on his side are clean and generally productive.

Bad: Swing  play II
Previously on The Good and the Bad, we discussed about how victory and defeat were separated by inches on multiple occasions. Texas was on the right side of those plays and when added up, they were enough to provide a margin of victory. Obviously, WVU isn’t quite good enough to rely getting those breaks — we’ve witnessed misfortune affecting the Mountaineers how many times this season? — which means WVU needs to to take those inches when they’re available  and then add them up at the end of the day for a winning margin.

That did not happen here. Quite the opposite, in fact.

We’re basically three years in and I can’t find a pattern or a logic to Holgorsen’s fourth down philosophy. And maybe there shouldn’t be a set of rules to follow. I don’t know. It’s certainly perplexing, though. He was bold and celebrated for what he did at Texas last season. He was criticized for what he did against Texas Tech this season. Against Kansas, he opted to go for it on fourth-and-10 down 24-7 in the middle of the third quarter and he decided to punt it here. I don’t understand either one, but it was pretty clear he had doubts about whether he was going to win the game, a message sent through two different messages. Here, he doesn’t think he can get a yard. Later, he doesn’t think he can stop Kansas enough to rationalize punting away possession.

But this punt was a bad, bad sign. There are some days when I feel like a game is a jury trial and you’ve got to make enough compelling points and strong arguments to convince people you can win. Saturday was one of those days. Right here, WVU emboldened Kansas as much as it weakened WVU.

Good: Will Clarke
You’re going to remember this play, but he did have a career-high 10 tackles, which is a lot for a defensive end. He was a little shaky early, like he is here, but he was very good in the second half. WVU’s played enough zone read teams this season to keep me from saying something like, “It’s hard to stop when you don’t prepare for it too often,” but it’s still not easy. Even here, he’s one man playing a shell game. He makes the right call, but it’s a hard play. He must make it, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a lot going on. What’s curious to me is why Cook went hard to his left at the snap. James Sims is to Cozart’s right. If it’s a handoff, it’s going to the left side of the play and Cook should be on that half. If Cozart keeps it, OK, there are guys there to handle that, including a middle linebacker who is spying the ball. Sims takes the handoff, breaks the tackle and runs through the voided space at the second level.

Good: Classic Charlie Weis
Confession: I was once a big fan of Weis at Notre Dame. I didn’t root for him or his team, but it was fun to watch those early teams that would runs screens and draws and a variety of formations for running plays. I happened to cover his first Notre Dame game at Pitt and, I guess, coined the phrase “Classic Charlie Weis,” as though there were a large enough sample size available to make such a generalization. Clearly, the absurdity of the statement is what gave it legs then, and probably what keeps it relevant now. Needless to say, it was getting a lot of run Saturday. And here’s a two-part illustration why, beginning with this play.

It’s the first time Kansas is under center all game and Weis goes for an unbalanced set with a guard and two tackles to the center’s right. I find it hard to draw a conclusion from WVU’s defense here because it just looks like a hefty goal line set that’s going to attack the middle, but put that in your pocket. Still, the play is clearly going to the right. Then the play starts and the pulling guard makes a block and Sims has just enough room. It’s not a bad play for WVU. Kansas did just enough in a small space.

Also, I will always smile for unbalanced sets.

Good: Remember me?
Hey, there’s that set again. And, well, there are just 39 seconds left in the half. Surely, this is another power play to the right. (Indeed, that’s what two defensive players told me they were expecting.) Brandon Golson lines up on the weak side and Isaiah Bruce is on the strong side, though a little deep, which is the case for the middle linebackers, as well. Still, WVU is selling out for a power run to the right.

It’s a toss and it’s a demolition. The fullback wipes out Bruce two yards in the backfield, but that’s fine. The linemen are four yards up the field when they make contact with the middle linebackers and Karl Joseph is done in by the slot receiver. Cook, frankly, shouldn’t have been on the field and he gives up the middle. No contest. None

Good: This
Hello again, unbalanced set. WVU stopped the toss this time. It happened. Bruce and Joseph are much closer to the line this time and Bruce took out the fullback early while Joseph gave himself the inside. Sims has to react and there’s nothing left. The middle linebackers know the play. Golson is guarding the cutback on the left side.

WVU wasn’t wholly inept on defense. It had a plan and players to stop the run. Kansas just got the better of the Mountaineers again and again. I also kind of disagree with the assertion WVU’s run defense was particularly good this season. That whole argument about how the Big 12 skews scoring and passing defense must also be applied to running numbers. A lot of teams would rather pass than run. But WVU has given up four huge, 300-plus yard running games in the past 12 games. Those games do count. WVU can be solid against the run, but teams can run on WVU.

Bad: This
OK, it’s 24-7 with less than a minute to go in the third quarter. It’s third-and-10. Kansas is not going to lose this game if it hangs onto the ball. That means asking Cozart to do nothing with the pass. So WVU goes man-to-man, as you can tell when a defender follows Sims as he motions out of the backfield. But now the backfield is empty and, I mean, it’s got to be a draw, right? (Side good: Jeremy Tyler signalling WVU recovered the fumble. He needs those reps.)

Bad: Special teams
Muffed punt costs 15 yards in field position. Illegal block erases a 56-yard kickoff return. Blocked field goal. Delay of game on a punt. Iffy punting. And then a pair of three-kicker onside kicks, which drew an email from someone I rather revere. Basically, it said the three-kicker look is a stupid gimmick. The goal of an onside kick is to have enough people on hand so that you can blast players on the receiving team and have enough leftover players to recover the kick. Use three kickers and it’s 8-on-11, which, now that he mentioned it, doesn’t make sense.

Good: Tip your cap

There’s really nothing Millard could do here. It’s a quick throw, which should have been good, but it’s a tremendous play by Ben Goodman. That’s preparation and agility turning into a result. That’s football. It happens.

Bad: Throw your headset
Ugh. The motion shows Kansas is in a zone and Millard doesn’t see Ben Heeney following his eyes and thus tracking the pass for an easy interception. That’s football. It shouldn’t happen. That said, and knowing you’ll probably disagree, but this was a neat scene at Memorial Stadium. It was clear the the game was in hand and the fans and players were willing to embrace it. The bell tolled, literally, for WVU and the celebration was on in the stands.