That’s bad. Bad form. Bad look. It’s Brian Baldinger’s Finger Bad, and just like that crooked stick, I don’t think there’s any fixing this.

You’ve got a Big 12 team playing a conference game with a Fox Sports crew and it’s on a channel affected by solar flares or whatever. It’ s not bad enough you can’t get to games that are 12 hours away. Now you’ve got to deal with electromagnetic disturbances 93 million miles away.

You’ve got a Big 12 team playing a conference game and it’s getting jerked around by an ACC game that comes on later. Four weeks ago you had a Tier 3 game that was handled with the aplomb of a tee ball run down.

I watched a ton of World Cup soccer this summer. This stuff never happened on Univision. I watched a lot of Rutgers v. UConn through the lean Big East years for crissakes and this never happened. When I wasn’t vehemently anti-Comcast, I used to watch city council meetings on the public access channel. This never happened.

Flares! Like this is Stamford freaking Bridge.

I feel for you, and I hate to tell you, but there’s no changing this. That’s your Tier 3 partner for the foreseeable future and that’s the carrier around these parts when the game is on Fox Sports Net.  The worst part is that you can’t have something seemingly ordinary just occur normally and without complication or circumstance, and you can’t get anyone who matters to side with you. Wait, does that sound familiar?

How did we get here? Let’s find out by taking a look at the Good and the Bad of WVU v. Kansas.

Bad: Of course
I’d reset my Point About Special Teams, but it’s be too hard to hear me over the din of frustrated people reaching out to help others aboard this crowded bandwagon. It’s just not reliable. The Mountaineers lose contain early here and let it get outside and Nick O’Toole, almost unbelievably, can’t shove the guy out of bounds. Look, a punt at the end of the fourth quarter of a one-sided affair is, in theory, inconsequential. I’d accept that if the 11 guys covering it didn’t jog down the field with that attitude — and judging by my notes and my eyes, those are your starters. But here’s the point: Even the punt at the end of a one-sided came can’t just happen without complication, and the Mountaineers don’t seem to grasp that. Fourteen points for the special teams Saturday. You’re naive if you think this won’t cost the Mountaineers during the final seven games.

Bad: Truths
Let’s set the record on special teams. WVU has the worst punt return defense in the country and ranks No. 114 out of 125 teams in kickoff returns. Mario Alford is superb on kickoff returns and, to be fair, the Mountaineers were spilling Kansas however they wanted to and creating chances for Alford. They lead the nation in that category, and Alford is No. 2 individually, but they’re No. 111 in punt returns. None of this makes sense, which is really the thing that does make sense. Overall, they make so many mistakes that it’s hard to believe, on the surface, they’re elite at anything. But they do some things so well and have so much talent and good coaching that it’s hard to believe they can make so many errors.

Bad: Status quo
I don’t know how you run Jordan Thompson out there against Texas Tech … except that it’s so damned windy there you’re risking the immediate success of any change by putting a new guy out there in bad conditions. Imagine putting, say, Vernon Davis out there and having one gust off his face for a turnover. Then you’ve got a massive mess. Then again, change just for the sake of change might go a long way, and at some point, don’t you have to coach up a replacement? This might only be temporary, too. Thompson will never admit this, but I think he’s in a slump. He looks uncertain. His mechanics are all akimbo. He’s moving back, his legs are moving and he’s well off balance here. It’s hard to catch a punt when you get everything right, but this play just doesn’t look right. He was the same on the others, which might explain why his first step is backward and how he finished with minus-2 yards on five returns. He’s better than this. If not, someone else is.

Good: Rapidity
Perfect. From above, given where the kick went and how WVU unfolded, you could see the Mountaineers had this set up for, at worst, a long return. Joe DeForest coaches that group, by the way. He doesn’t teach this, though.

That’s 40 non-linear yards in 4.004 seconds.

I don’t know what his combine 40 will be, but it’s going to be fast.

Bad: Punt returning Alford
Three career chances, one lost fumble, minus-13 yards in returns. People forget, but he had two returns against Towson and lost 8 and 3 yards. I think that, as much as anything else, was why he didn’t spell limping, fumbling Thompson against Maryland. I mean, he’s probably good at it, and he’s the backup, but let’s not automatically assume he’s the answer. He even hedged on it and said he’s “iffy” about the chore.

Good: Give him the ball
No one benefits more from playing with Kevin White than Alford, but no one has to learn more about living with White than Alford. White is going to get the attention of the defense, but also of the offense, and Alford has to understand that and accept that, which he probably does. But he also has to understand and accept that as White soars his margin for error shrinks. He cannot drop passes or get stripped in the red zone or, as he did Saturday, lose grasp of a fade or check out of a fourth down play when he’s the primary receiver.  Similarly, WVU has to make sure Alford has room to work with so that margin isn’t so dangerously thin, and WVU did find and even create ways to get him the ball Saturday with screens and comeback routes and this sweep with backfield counter action pulled straight out of Friday Night Lights.

Good: Fast and furious
Poor No. 98. He’s the left defensive end and he sees the play coming and thinks he can keep the top on it. Nope. Nope. Can’t get his 298 pounds going the way he needs to get them going before Alford’s waving goodbye. And the hose collar tackle did not sit well with Alford. “It didn’t hurt, but I was kind of mad because I wanted to dive in. That’s why I made it up on the kickoff return,” he said. Oh.

Bad: Quick game!
Good things typically happen when Clint Trickett gets rid of the ball this fast, and usually because Alford or White is getting it on a screen on the perimeter or in the middle, and this throw had to be fast because of the down-and-distance. K.J. Myers is the primary receiver and he’s open and Trickett does what he’s supposed to do. We’ve been over this before, too, but the receiver at the bottom of the screen is never the primary receiver and oftentimes isn’t even considered. But that’s a shame here because the cornerback falls and Alford was free.

Good: Third down defense
Tony  Gibson took the blame here, and you can see what happens. WVU is in one play on third-and-long and Kansas looks to the sideline and changes. The Mountaineers then change what they had planned and drop back. Kansas changed to a draw and WVU got caught in a defense that wasn’t looking for the draw — though, to be fair, this play should have been a stop, too. WVU stopped the next seven third downs and again forced a ton of third-and-longs. Kansas had third-and-7 or longer on 10 of 17 third downs. In five games, opponents have needed seven or more yards on 44 of 79 third downs. That’s a keeper stat as we move forward.

Bad: Margin
Icky Banks, who’s been very good his first two games, needs to make this play. He knows that. He knows that it’s another red zone conversion, too. The Mountaineers allowed Oklahoma two third-down conversions in the red zone and two subsequent touchdowns. This was another one that kept alive a drive that ended with a touchdown. That’s a habit Gibson wants to break. Fast. And let’s think another way here: Banks makes the tackle short of the sticks and Bowen has a decision to make. I say he kicks the field goal because he can’t get shutout in his first game. But we don’t know. Maybe this was difference between seven points and the second shutout of the season. Everything matters.

Good: Diamante
Lots of diamond in this game, but that was expected, I think, because Kansas was going to play man-to-man outside and do what it had to do to crowd the box and stop the run. The diamond is WVU’s counter. This is damn near nine in the box — let’s remember that look — with two defenders taking the edge on either side of the line. But the diamond can handle that. The backs next to the quarterback can handle the edge, if the play asks them to, and WVU still has 5-on-3 at the point with a chance to use one double-team or multiple double-teams, depending on how the blocking backs are used. On this play, the blocking backs are going left and WVU trusts Rushel Shell can outrun the defender coming from the right side, which he does. The nose is doubled, the left tackle and left guard kick their guys out and Cody Clay and Eli Wellman open up space for Shell. It’s a chunk of green space from there.

Good: Bien
If it works, do it again, right? Right. Except not. Kansas knew what was happening and rather than let its two safeties get caught too deep against the run, the defense trusts the corners against the pass more than it trusts the rest of the gang against the run. An extra safety gets creatively close and Trickett is staring at an eight-man front but also looking at a safety on the left hash and a grown ass man 30 yards to that safety’s right. Zero percent chance WVU ever runs into that look. Everything works … except that the nation’s leading receiver couldn’t hang on, which, let’s be honest, was a stunner.

Good: Multiplicity
We also saw a lot of the five-receiver sets, too. It continues to be a hint for a receiver screen, but WVU has typically switched up who the receiver is on the three-receiver side. Later in the game, WVU went five-wide on five straight plays and only ran the screen once, making that essentially practice within a game, as well as something else for Texas Tech to consider.

Bad: Clock management
The end of the first half was sloppy. WVU started at its 20-yard line with 61 seconds and two timeouts remaining and ended up kicking a 53-yard field goal … and leaving the field with two timeouts. It started with an 8-yard run by Wendell Smallwood, and that’s fine, but it stayed in bounds and no one called a timeout. I’m still OK with that, especially when Trickett and Thompson connect on the next play for 19 yards and Thompson does everything he can to get out of bounds, and does at the 47. Now there are 36 seconds showing and WVU runs and Smallwood gains three yards and there’s a timeout … no, wait, no timeout … and there are 32 seconds left and WVU doesn’t snap it until 14 seconds pass. Then it’s a deep throw to White that takes seven seconds and a Dreamius Smith run with 11 seconds to go. He salvages the drive with 14 yards and then steps out of bounds with four seconds to go. It’s going to be really interesting if/when WVU needs a touchdown this season.

Good: Josh Lambert
He’s really good. I know, I know, he gets kicks blocked more than you’d like to see, but he’s worth several points a game now, and he’s the reason that drive before halftime wasn’t wasted. And this is fun, too: When he misses a field goal and has a subsequent kick in the same game, he’s 7-for-8.

Good: Preparation
WVU’s defense was ready for this game. Sure, Kansas. But that same offense does a lot in the run game and does a good job keeping you from keying on it. But the Mountaineers were never caught looking at an option or a zone read or something spooky. It blitzed and rushed Kansas out of the two tight ends sets (seven-man line) that Oklahoma used with success, except that Oklahoma went unbalanced and put its tight ends on one side. Kansas put one on each end, but WVU had a plan to work against the heavy set and sent someone from the edge to take away the perimeter. WVU had a plan for most everything and carried those plans out, including this. Gibson told me he was worried about Cozart rolling right and throwing, so you know his players were ready for that and saw all the possible plays and routes the Jayhawks were going to employ when they moved Cozart into double-threat positions. Watch Dravon Henry. He jumped all over this one because he saw it probably 50 times during the week. It wasn’t an interception, but it was impressive.

Good: Domination
Been a while since WVU dominated a game defensively, no? Forget Towson. I mean an actual opponent. The Mountaineers forced 14 punts and 10 in a row to start the game. I don’t care who you are or what level you’re at. You don’t recover from 10 straight punts, and WVU made sure of that. Everything is somewhat relative with Kansas, but that team can run the ball — you do remember last season, don’t you? — and was averaging 193.5 yards per game coming in. WVU allowed Alabama 288 yards rushing, Maryland 163 yards and Oklahoma 301 yards, but spent a lot of time on that in the open week and gave up 65 to Kansas. A lot of that had to do with rallying to the ball, and though this was a pass, appreciate the pursuit to make sure this goes nowhere.

Bad: Turnovers
WVU created none against Kansas and has forced only three all season. It’s hard to be hard on Wes Tonkery, who is the only active player with a turnover this season, but it’d be nice to get one of these every so often … and WVU had multiple chances to do this against Kansas. Those loom a little larger when you’ve somehow only forced two fumbles in 10 quarters. Two! Wait, used my emphatic exit too soon. Texas Tech has lost the turnover battle in thirteen straight games. Thirteen!

Good: Linebackers
Tonkery and Nick Kwiatkowski were both great, and that was a useful net for Edward Muldrow to work above in his first start and most extensive playing action. I get the feeling playing Muldrow and moving Brandon Golson is a lot about all the things coaches say it’s about, but that Gibson has deep, deep faith in Tonkery and Kwiatkoski, who are having great seasons. They are more athletic and able than mere onlookers think. They’re out of sorts here, but they make sure the play doesn’t get to the tight end in the flat. Had to have it and they got it.

Good: It’s contagious
How good have Tonkery and Kwiatkoski been? So good that Trickett wants in on the action. I think he knew when he let go that there was a good chance this one would be intercepted. I know he was “pissed” because he said he was and said that’s why he went head hunting.

Bad: Update
Yeah, my bad, this didn’t count either, but that’s a 40-yard throw when Trickett is running out of gas and has close to no momentum on the throw. It was also one of four MTEP throws (moves to escape pressure). He was 0-for-4 — Thompson probably could have held onto this one earlier in the game — and never ran the ball. For the season, his MTEP numbers are 9-for-20 for 141 yards and an interception and four carries for 28 yards.

Good: Season-long Rushel
Twenty-eight yards in the fifth game is the longest run of the season. I suppose the good part here is that the center, right guard, right tackle and tight end mop up on this one.

Good: The both of them
We’re all going to ogle Shell here for how the big man danced and drove to turn a short pass headed nowhere dance into a first down. There’s something else here, and I direct your attention to the highlighted Kansas defender. That’d be 6-foot, 230-pound Ben Heeney, only one of the best linebacker in the Big 12. He gets thrown out of the play by  White. That ain’t right.

Good: Drop
Sure, the touchdown catch was pretty, and White again cooked a cornerback at the line on the snap, but I thought this pass interference was a better presentation of White so far. I’m not being fair saying he dropped it, because he was triple-teamed and interfered with and didn’t have much of a shot at it, but, man, he almost caught that. Are we at the point now where we’re surprised he didn’t catch that? I think we’re there. I guess my point is we ought to be having a lot of fun watching White play.

Good: Talk with the hand
The Jayhawks played hard on defense, and they have some talent. That secondary is really good. I thought JaCorey Shepherd was great and safeties Isaiah Johnson and Cassius Sendish played pretty well. Sendish talks a bit, too, and he tells Shell here he’s lucky he stepped out of bounds. Shell’s reaction speaks louder than words.