Long, 12-game story short, West Virginia’s offense was not last season what it had been the six seasons before.

Remember in the summer when JaJuan Seider tweeted something prophetic and seemingly harmless, if not ambitious?

Some one will catch a 100 plus balls next year, someone will throw for over 4000yds and we will rush for over 2500yds it’s what we do. #WVU

— JaJuan Seider (@coachseider) July 2, 2013

We had a discussion about it — it’s what we do — and most seemed skeptical about whether the Mountaineers could hit their marks.

Well, they didn’t, and they missed by a lot. WVU set Holgorsen Era lows for all sorts of things, and we’ve been over explanations, most of which revolve around the trouble the team had first identifying a quarterback and then keeping him healthy.

There was also the prickly problem with youth and inexperience at receiver and how long it took WVU to settle on Kevin White and Mario Alford outside and Daikiel Shorts and nobody else inside. Remember, Alford started as an inside guy. Ron Carswell was second on the team in receiving yards and the only explosive play playmaker the offense had when he was suspended. Shorts could come and go. White was was dinged up at times and just couldn’t consistently make plays.

Combine the problems at the pass-throwing and pass-catching positions and, yeah, a passing offense is going to have problems.

There was an added element that Holgorsen only buzzed over once or twice during the season, likely not wanting to give it any more credit that it was already earning. Defenses stopped playing zone against the Mountaineers. They went man-to-man, which was a spike strip for what WVU could do. It took away packaged plays. It outnumbered Charles Sims in the box. It put all the playmaking pressure on Alford and White.

Beating man-to-man, inviting zone back to the table and getting back into the run-pass package plays is a big part of WVU’s spring practice.

“We faced it more last year than we’ve faced it in the past and probably we’ll face it more next year potentially,” he said. “It depends on how good Mario can get at being a fade guy and how good Kevin can be at jump balls. That discourages a lot of man coverage. We’ve got guys that can beat you deep at the drop of a hat.

“But that’s what Oklahoma did exclusively. Texas did it quite a bit. Kansas did it quite a bit for a variety of reasons. But we can control that. We have some things to say about that.”