Nice work by Getty for this photo. Show of hands! Which was your favorite dropped touchdown pass Thursday?

Now that I’ve had time to think this over, I keep coming back to one word again and again: Identity.

Pretty sure we can put to rest the “They’re basically twins!” discussion as it relates to WVU and TCU. Because they’re not.

True, the first three games these two teams played against one another were close and could have gone either way. The past 21 games for the Horned Frogs and the past 20 for the Mountaineers have sent the programs in different directions. The larger sample size is bigger and better.

It’s not right or fair to say they’re similar, and if you protest that, look at how TCU has not only managed its injuries on defense this season, but how it’s reinvented itself offensively in not quite two years.

I could argue that the comparison was merely convenient — lazy, if you will — because they both entered the Big 12 together and just so have the same records the first two seasons. But TCU has a better recruiting area, a better coaching situation and better facilities, to name a few. While they both had good momentum coming in, one’s was at the mercy of a coaching transition that arrived early coupled with a conference transition it never really wanted and the other was under the control of a longstanding coach who’d been building his program hell bent on sitting at the grown-ups’ table.

There’s separation now, so next fall, I promise you I will throw so much shade at the idea of kinship. Honestly — and I mean it since I wrote about it — the idea of a “measuring stick” seemed underthought this season.

How about this for identity: Who or what the heck is WVU right now? Are the Mountaineers the understood and acceptable product of their schedule? Are they as good as one end and/or as bad as the other? It’s been pretty confusing to weigh and consider everything because — and you know this — I always come to a point in the season when I sit down and apply the “You are who you are” principle. (Famously reliable!)

I can’t figure this one out. It’s very confusing. Dana Holgorsen’s wearing black at a blackout and he’s low-fiving opponents. Reserved-bordering-upon-boring Skyler Howard is demonstrative after terrible plays by his teammates. Receivers and cornerbacks are dropping gimmies they were banking earlier.

You do rub your eyes sometimes.

It’s frustrating,” running back Wendell Smallwood said — because Howard met with his family instead of reporters after the game. “He believes in those guys. He believes in all the receivers. To go out and get so close and be let down and having dropped balls, that means a lot to him. I think it’s starting to get to him.”

But this slide can’t be put at the feet of the quarterback, who again completed fewer than half his passes, or the head coach, who was hired and hailed for his offensive prowess but managed 10 points before halftime and none after it and then confessed, “I’m failing at my job to get that done.”

Offense is Holgorsen’s identity. It’s weird to see him flounder like this and to be flawed at his skill positions, but the strength of this team was never going to be the offense. It was supposed to be the defense.

That’s not working either.

Defensive coordinator Tony Gibson played without a starting safety and a key reserve defensive back. A starting cornerback played with one arm and a starting linebacker came off the bench after not practicing all week. All five starting defensive backs were helped off the field at different times. A reserve linebacker was playing defensive end and another had to play safety. Multiple defenders who hadn’t played meaningful snaps in years, if at all, were forced to play.

Simply put, there were occasions when the Mountaineers were using most of a scout team defense on the road on a Thursday night against the fifth-ranked team in the country.

“It’s like we’re waiting for bad things to happen, and it seems like we’re not recovering,” Gibson said. “It’s not good.”

How about this for identification? Holgorsen’s offense is a mess. That guy. His offense. Mess. Skyler Howard is not great, but he was better and was wrongly kept from being way better Thursday. Wendell Smallwood’s piling up yardage, but he shoveled meaningless yards Thursday. The run game doesn’t do anything prolifically, save one 52-yard run by Smallwood that ended up short of the end zone and underscores the offense’s issues, because WVU ended up missing a field goal after (an injured) Smallwood couldn’t make it to paydirt.

Remember when the strength was the defense? This defense … yikes. I don’t want to go too hard on those guys, not because it would be mean but because I’m afraid they’d wreck a cornea or have their feelings fractured if they read any more than what they know. Boiled down, WVU’s playing guys it shouldn’t being playing. That’s not a coaching criticism. That’s reality. On the first drive of a Thursday-night road game against the fifth-ranked team in the country, WVU played Isaiah Brice at defensive end, Marvin Gross at spur, Nana Kyeremeh at corner, Ed Muldrow III at linebacker (because Shaq Petteway didn’t practice all week) and Jeremy Tyler at safety.

When Dravon Askew-Henry hobbled off the field in the third quarter, Khairi Sharif ran onto the field, and a walk-on cornerback who plays, I believe, one special team played free safety. TCU scored on that snap, and while it’s silly to blame Shariff, that’s what Gibson’s talking about — bad things. That said, it’s fair to expect better from whomever is in the game.

“It’s college football,” coach Dana Holgorsen said. “Second-teamers and third-teamers need to get in there and play. If they can’t compete at a high level against those guys, they’re going to be in trouble.”

Speaking of trouble … Texas Tech scored 53 Saturday, at home, yes, in a loss, yes, but against Oklahoma State. Five games remain, but if you’re identifying an especially critical area, understand a whole lot is to be decided in these next two.