Not certain it’s the officials but people who got off bus, were greeted by “Welcome to UT, officials!” are out snapping photos on the field.

— Mike Casazza (@mikecasazza) November 8, 2014

I’m not sure where to begin today because there’s a lot to get to and there’s a lot on my mind and I don’t know how long you or I will last. So let’s start at the beginning with that pregame tweet that’s everything you’ve ever suspected about the University of Texas. (Also, one of the guys taking pictures barely fit into his sports coat, so I’ll just assume, without any proof, it was swole referee Mike Defee.) (Also also, I don’t really care about the pictures. I take photos of things when I go places. And though I was being witty, it is strange to see officials doing that.)

I didn’t think the officiating was good or bad, so I don’t think it was great or terrible. They missed things and they saw things and they made calls the had to and calls they didn’t have to. I was, I guess, whelmed. Those eight were just there and had nothing to do with the outcome, but they were, at times, something. Defee couldn’t call a penalty right. The goal line play on the first series was, at best, faulty. No one explained what happened to disqualify K.J. “Flagrant Striking” Dillon. There was more, but, whatever. Minimal stuff that, again, had nothing to do with the final score. But this was fun …

That was a big-time play in the game of football this year. Texas played a ton of zone (more on that in a bit) and the defensive backs made plays. Mykkele Thompson nailed this and, of course, palmed Wendell Smallwood’s head. The linesman is right there and goes to his back pocket, I guess, to tweet: At Texas game. Thompson’s all like, “BIG hit for SMALLwood.” Lol

Other linesman tweets:

1) Defee was in the gym at 5. I slept till 9. Who’s the dumb bell?
2) Arrived at DKR for Texas and WVU. Ima get a selfie with Trickett’s hair. #GarnierGang
3) Why’s Holgo so mad? He seemed so nice with @notthefakeSVP
4) …the Mounties thought the Alamo went poorly!!!
5) WVU’s No. 2 needs more carries.

More fact and fiction coming at you as we enter the open week with WVU at 6-4 overall, 4-3 in the Big 12 and holding a two-game losing streak. How did we get here? Let’s find out by taking a look at the Good and the Bad of WVU v. Texas.

Bad: Messages
This play was a scene from a bad day for WVU. The blitz comes in and Dillon sees a little too much and gets a tad sidetracked and Tyrone Swoopes just chucks it into the corner. I have to think Icky Banks was totally surprised and wasn’t expecting the ball that fast. He gets caught and he interferes and he gets yanked and directed to the far corners of the sideline.

And, man, that confuses me. Terrell Chestnut was called for pass interference on the first drive and he, too, spotted the ball at the 2-yard line. He didn’t come out at all. Marquis Lucas and Adam Pankey were getting turnstiled all game and Pankey was stuck on June 14 and the only time one of those two came out was when Pankey’s lid flew off (Aside: No penalty!) and Marcel Lazard played one snap. There are people who want to marvel at the quantity of snaps the linemen play, and there’s a nobility in that when the five play as well as they did against, say, Baylor. Those might be the best five, but that doesn’t mean it’s a great five or that this situation is a strength. It’s hard to believe those two played the way they did and played all but one snap, but that’s the reality when you have no backup. You can bench Banks when there’s a player behind him. WVU can’t sit Pankey and Lucas, and teams have gone at them the past two games. Have the lack of competition in practice and the lack of consequences on the field affected WVU? I think that’s a fair topic.

And then special teams happened.

I really want to stop talking about it, but they keep giving us material. How, in the 10th game of the season, does the third punt returner decide this is a good idea? At some point, someone has to think, “You know what, I’m only out here because two guys before me made bad decisions, and the second guy was on an extraordinarily short leash, so patience  is wearing thin. This ball is going to the left. I’m out here to be smart. I’ve witnessed so many things that were not smart and therefore gifted me this spot. We’re down three touchdowns, but our offense is getting loose and our defense is nice. I probably shouldn’t try to catch this.” That has to drive Dana Holgorsen absolutely berznope he’s patting Davis on the helmet.

Eh, OK. Get his head up. He’s been the best of the three so far and, more fairly, very secure. So run him out there again and hope Icky isn’t watching from the trunk he was locked inside.

Then Davis goes out there, lets a ball hit and roll and, for some reason, goes at the gunner and nearly kicks the ball. And to top it off, Al-Rasheed Benton is guilty of holding on that return and the ball goes back to the 2.

You know what happened next.

Good: Three points
One is Marquis Lucas pointing out Thompson sneaking in from his right, and the other two come from the safety. Texas earned this. Jordan Hicks, the middle linebacker, steps forward and occupies Tyler Orlosky and Mark Glowinski, and Cedric Reed, who was the truth, zipped through the gap. That’s a win. But I want you to back up two quarters.

Here’s Clint Trickett’s interception. Listen all the way through the clip. Ryan Nece is right. Quandre Diggs reads it (Aside: Numbers!) and jumps it, with an assist from Trickett’s eyeballs.

Now let’s go back to the safety.

Same play for WVU, but the back stays in to block. WVU waited two quarters to run the bait-and-switch on Diggs, who was playing a great game and had no reason not to trust his instincts.

WVU decided to go back to the quick pass to White, but with a twist. White would run a double-move. He’d first bait Diggs with the inside route the cornerback spotted before and could be expecting again in the tight space up against the end zone. White would then angle back outside so he could run deep.

“We got the coverage we wanted and I thought we’d be able to come through for sure,” White said. “We had a great matchup and I’m confident I would have come down with the play. We just didn’t have enough time.”

Defensive end Cedric Reed ruined everything when he stepped untouched through the line and sacked Trickett for a safety. Reed lined up over right guard Mark Glowinski and right tackle Marquis Lucas. Safety Mykkele Thompson stepped forward over Lucas’ right shoulder, and Lucas pointed out Thompson and blocked him on the snap.

No one accounted for Reed, and Trickett had no chance to take advantage of what he saw and what WVU was sure would happen.

“It would have been a 99-yard touchdown,” he said.

It wasn’t that easy. He’d still have to throw it, which we’ll cover in a moment, and White would have to catch it and outrun people, but it was there. White subtly starts inside, angles out and is open. WVU had something, but WVU also had a problem because asking the line to block in that situation for a deep pass was a tall order.

Good: In defense of Davis
Before I forget, Texas had a new punter. He’s left-footed. Ask any punt returner: Left-footed punts are a nightmare. It’s very different from regular right-footed punts. They spin different;y. They fly differently. They’re not fun. I’d imagine Davis was probably affected by that.

Good: Celebration!
That’s a 16-yard return for Davis and a 15-yard  penalty against Texas for a facemask. It’s the longest gain on a WVU punt since Tavon Austin had a 42-yard return against Iowa State in 2012.

Bad: Experienced depth
There’s no escaping this: WVU’s no-show wasn’t the sign of a particularly strong or experienced team, and while it’s encouraging to hear Holgorsen say has been to all Big 12 venues before, it’s never been true this season. Fifteen of the 22 starters on offense and defense didn’t play in the last game at Texas and most of them weren’t even on the roster. That doesn’t account for another 22 players who didn’t start the game. So 37 players hadn’t played in Austin before, and it’s been like that at all the Big 12 venues. I say this not to pile on, but to remind you that this roster still has a way to go — I think we’re clear on depth, right? — to be where it needs to be to make sure days like that don’t happen.

Bad: Starts
First play from scrimmage for Texas right there. Tackles are flicking guys outside. The fullback  is clearing the lane. One receiver is running in to get a block and another is blocking downfield so it’s 10 yards before Malcolm Brown is touched on a 14-yard gain.

Bad: Signs
So you counter, right? Put eight in the box. Smart play on first down with Swoopes under center. Brown’s untouched for eight yards. I circled it. We’ve been over this: 12 personnel, 21 personnel, unbalanced sets that Oklahoma and Oklahoma State showed … going big creates problems for WVU and they’ve been contiguous features for the opponent. Texas didn’t go unbalanced. Texas didn’t do anything unexpected. Texas just ran over WVU behind big bodies in the first half.

Good: Execution
I thought Joe Wickline called a great game in the first half! (google it. I’ll wait.) Anyhow, Texas had WVU spinning because Texas throws a lot of different formations at you and asks a couple different people to do important things. They use three tight ends and a fullback to line up in various looks and run the ball. On this one, M.J. McFarland, the third tight end, the one who doesn’t start, takes out Noble Nwachukwu and Nick Kwiatkoski to give Johnathan Gray a lane.

Bad: Johnathan
I can’t spell that properly. Can’t.

Bad: First half queries
I’m with TFGD, again, because I don’t know what was going on with WVU’s first possession and at least attempting to line up for a 57-yard field goal. Maybe the Mountaineers were going to kick it. Getting the delay of game was bizarre, but I think WVU was miffed the officials started the play clock and then let Texas substitute its punt team for its field goal block team. I don’t think WVU was using Josh Lambert to draw Texas offsides. That Nick O’Toole followed with a touchback was somewhat fitting for the day. “Special teams in general were terrible,” Holgorsen said. But then at the end of the half, Trickett gets sacked and then flattened by Lucas and loses his helmet. He has to come out of the game and Sky Howard is warming up with a few throws. Then Dana calls timeout to put Trickett back in to hand off and punt. The cherry on top was Charlie Strong letting letting the rest of the half go like, “Nah, we’re good.”

Good: Noble
Say you found me Saturday night and said, “Spec, tell me who had a good game on defense, please.” I would have named Nwachukwu. Short list (Chestnut was OK, despite the P.I.) but he was chasing plays down or making tackles and he held up very nicely in the second half. And let’s get this in here while we’re on a Good: WVU’s defense was terrific after halftime. I don’t think Texas backed off until late, when it was the right thing to do, and the Mountaineers shut down just about everything. The last touchdown really didn’t matter. But the first half happened and it mattered. I had WVU sending two or more players with the defensive line on 18 pass plays, which is a low number for Tony Gibson. Swoopes ran once and completed three passes on his 17 throws. WVU couldn’t force more drop backs or blitz more because the run was effective to first build and then sustain a lead. The 3-3-5 is most effective when playing from ahead or even.

Good: Can you dig it?
I mean, they even made plays to keep Texas from making plays in the second half after missing all the plays that let Texas make plays in the first half. Watch Shaq Petteway on the right edge here. He’s going in, but he hits the brakes and does a nice job to make a mess of this. If Gray catches it and the receiver does his job and blocks Daryl Worley, he’s got time and space. WVU instead turned Texas over on downs after the onside kick Texas secured with a fair catch.

Good: Satire
Brown was OK after this. Strong nursed him back to good spirits on the field:

“I know when Malcolm went down, I went out on the field and he was laying there, I was like, ‘Are you okay?’ He was like, ‘I don’t want to lay here, Coach. I’ve got to get off the field.’ I said, ‘You got blown up. You need to kind of sit here for a minute.’

“So we were kind of joking out on the field and laughing about it. I said, ‘He blew you up.’ He’s like, ‘Come on, Coach. Can I get out of here?’  And I said, ‘No, just stay here for a second.’ Then I told J Gray, ‘Just go make one long run.'”

Good: Soldiers
J Gray followed his coach’s orders and spun Joseph around in the open field.

Bad: Screen game
Forget the stuff to the receivers, hard as that may be. The looks were there. Texas played zone and backed off the line and WVU, which wasn’t running especially well, went with the long handoffs. Texas just played a lot of them really well and rallied to the ball with the linebackers, who spied on Trickett and read the open hips, and safeties (Imagine that!) who were deep and who were asked to speed up to help cornerbacks getting blocked by receivers. But I’ve never seen the Mountaineers, and their offensive linemen in particular, run their running back screens as poorly as they did Saturday. It was terrible, and that was bad news for WVU, which wanted to take advantage of the linemen charging up the field. Couldn’t pull it off, couldn’t unplug the pressure.

Good: Trickett?
This is third-and-10 and with four-man pressure, but Trickett has to scramble a little and hit his running back … or else. He was sacked three times. He never had a reliable stretch by his line, and especially his tackles, that would make him trust he’d have time to do things. That was a killer because of what Texas was doing on defense, but Holgorsen was mostly content with his quarterback making good decisions and not making errors — the interception notwithstanding.

“I thought Clint did a good job on that. When people play zone, and they played zone the whole game, you’ve got to have a progression, which means you’ve got to have time to throw the ball. I thought Clint was much more comfortable in the pocket tonight, even though he got pressured and he got hit. He did a great job of going through his reads and getting the ball to his receivers.”

He made some bad throws — this would have been a healthy gain — and he didn’t help his receivers out on some other throws — look at the space in the middle for Thompson — but the game manager did manage the game, which was a necessity against the Longhorns’ scheme. The Mountaineers were going to need to win with screens and short throws and the run game and the occasional deep throw when it availed itself. (I also thought he had a shot at Mario Alford here, and that it looked sort of familiar, because Texas was making it abundantly clear Kevin White would not get open, but, hey, first 2-point conversion of the season!)

Bad: A little late, no?
Technically, this play never happened because of pass interference, but WVU’s first long pass of the game came with 9:53 left in the third quarter. Truth be told, there weren’t a lot of other opportunities. (See above.) Please note that White was in the slot here, which usually only happens when a screen comes his way. WVU really tried to incorporate him, and he looked happy about that.

Bad: But it was there
Trickett waited and he watched and he made good decisions, and when an opportunity became available, he went for it. This isn’t a bad throw, though it’s hard to overthrow Mario Alford, who, to be frank, has to be better than he’s been of late. If this is a touchdown, it’s game on with 19 minutes to go. I counted three deep pass plays that counted in the stat book. I don’t automatically think that’s an indictment of Trickett’s shoulder and whether it’s healthy or fatigued or whatever label you want to put on it, but I think it’s fair to wonder about that, too.

Bad: Are we here?
Is this a touchdown? WVU knew Texas dropped into the end zone to defend passes, which explains the shallow crossing routes on third and fourth down early in the third quarter — there’s no room behind them. This is underneath that plan and Daikiel Shorts has room. Is this a play Trickett should make? Does early-October Trickett make it? Does early-November Trickett not have that in his bag? Or are we being unreasonable?

Bad: Update
Not a lot to add there, so let’s add to the MTEP numbers: He was 2-for-3 for 9 yards, he ran twice for 13 yards and was sacked once for a loss of 10. For the season, he’s 16-for-39 for 202 yards and two interceptions, five sacks, a lost fumble, an intentional grounding penalty and a pass interference penalty, plus 10 runs for 61 yards.

Good: Diggs
He wanted White. He gave up 16 catches. He played a really good game. His first step here is a little dangerous because he bails early to block entry into Bolivia, but it worked. (Aside: I’ve never seen a team pump the fade and cut inside. I want to see it.) The inside  is wide the heck open here, but Diggs had this before the snap. Also: Thompson played nickelback. Dylan Haines played free safety. The safety made 14 tackles. and this is a Thing.

Good: Solution!
The first goal line series was a debacle. The two runs went nowhere, and the fade was second down. Poor Russell Haughton-James got snookered by two linemen who shifted inside before the snap, which is a trick to get a lineman to flinch. But maybe Dustin Garrison should have gotten a touch and used his trambopoline?

Good: #Freemius
A touchdown in four straight games, a season-long run in three straight games and, like, nine other carries. Let’s get it trending.