Someone asked me in yesterday’s chat how many players from WVU’s starting  lineup would make Alabama’s starting lineup. I couldn’t offer up an answer — he put me on the spot … but it’s different than basketball because basketball has five players and football has 22, but also because football has schemes and systems and what works for one might not work for the other — but I thought it was a really clever question. I even spent part of my flight from PIT to CLT giving it a whirl, and  maybe you all an tackle it here.

But here’s what we can agree on: WVU would use more Alabama players than Alabama would use WVU players, which gives us something else to consider.

Alabama has an offensive philosophy that is easy to identify and easy to convey to your players. That is not to say it’s easy to stop, but there are fewer surprises and wrinkles. What you see is typically what you’ll get.

The Crimson Tide rely on their guys being good enough at what they do that the level of skill and execution trumps the fact the defense is prepared for what the offense will do.

And the Mountaineers, oddly enough, are OK with that. They actually prefer that, possible demoralizing results be damned.

“I’d much rather prepare for a team knowing how they’re going to line up and what they’re going to do,” WVU defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said. “They’re going to line up in certain things and they don’t try to hide anything. They don’t motion a lot. They don’t shift out into an empty set and try to do different things. They are what they are and they know what they are.”

So the WVU defense has been situating itself for a while now, diagnosing Alabama’s offense and inoculating its own depth chart so it is armed to stop what it expects, which is a lot of run and playaction and occasional shots outside and over the top to open the middle for the run and Mr. Howard.

It’s finite, but it’s effective and perhaps more so in the first game of the season, though the Mountaineers believe they have a way to put a spur in those plans.

“Right now, my biggest fear is tackling those kinds of backs 40 or 50 times,” Gibson said. “I think that’s what they’re going to do, and the first game, what you always worry about is the tackling. That right there is a little concerning.”

But just a little. Not a lot.

“This is how I see it,” said WVU’s K.J. Dillon. “If I’ve done 50 snaps, he’s done 50 snaps. If I hit him 50 times, he’s taken 50 hits. Both our bodies are going to wear down. Then it’s a matter of who gives up first. I know for a fact I’m not going to give up.”

Dillon, the junior from Apopka, Fla., will handle many tasks for the Mountaineers. The spur is part linebacker, part cornerback and part safety. He will blitz, play the run and defend the pass. As the 2014 season opens with his team expected to lose by nearly four touchdowns, Dillon must be one thing above all else for the Mountaineers.

“Huge,” Gibson said. “He’s the key to our defense. A kid like him in that position is the key to making us go. He’s the guy who has to be effective at what he’s doing in that position to make us go as a defense.”