You are looking live at Kivisto Field inside Memorial Stadium, where West Virginia can clinch bowl eligibility with a win. Also, it’s windy! But unlike past seasons when WVU has traveled to road venues and had its offense bitten by the wind, I find it hard to believe these breezes are stiff enough to move a handoff 5 or 6 inches to the left or right and disrupt things. 

The Mountaineers will have to and try to pass it a little bit, and it appears Skyler Howard will again be the starting quarterback. We didn’t give enough attention to this throughout the week, but his right hand is not all right. He dinged it late last week against Texas and had it wrapped in an ice pack after the game, which isn’t particularly newsworthy.

But on Tuesday, the day the players and coaches talk to reporters, nobody saw his right hand. It was sheathed inside a sweatshirt, but he spoke promisingly about his ability to grip and throw.

We also talk to players before they practice Tuesday, which is the first day of the for days of practice that matter as it relates to the weekend’s game. Chatter’s found its way to me this week that there was at elast concern about the hand.

Well, a WVU envoy tells me the plan is for Howard to start. He has to get through warmups, but that’s the expectation. I he cannot start or finish, the Mountaineers have William Crest and not David Solls o Chris Chuganov, ready to go.

That’s something to eyeball, for sure, and that’s kind of fun because we think we know what’s going to happen in this game. The Mountaineers are 26 1/2-point favorites (with an over/under of 57?) and they’re going to run the ball 50-some times. Wendell Smallwood’s going to be aimed at the Big 12’s second-worst rush defense and he’s going to get tackles inside the 3-yard line at least once.

The talking point/punchline this week is Smallwood can’t score, and there is some truth to that. He has 167 carries and six scores, and you can see for yourself that he hasn’t crossed the goal line a lot lately. We’re talking one score in 88 carries. In the past four games, he’s been tackles inside the 3 five times and he’s carried wice from the 1 and not scored.

Smallwood ranks No. 19 nationally with 1,119 rushing yards and No. 14 with 124.33 yards per game. An above-average 132 yards today moves him into the top 10 of WVU’s single-season totals and leaves him fewer than 500 yards from Steve Slaton’s school-record 1,744 yards in 2006.

But of the 26 FBS players with at least 1,000 yards this season, only three have scored fewer touchdowns than Smallwood. One has more yards than Smallwood and all three have more carries. Those same three players are the only ones among the 33 averaging 100 yards a game who have scored less often than Smallwood. (The ironic part of this is Smallwood has been chastised in the past for pushing too hard toward the end zone and reaching the ball across the goal line, both of which contributed to fumble problems before.)

This is all very frustrating and funny to Dana Holgorsen, who likes touchdowns and who knows how to get through to players like Smallwood, who’s a good sport. A couple days ago, Holgorsen pulled Smallwood aside at practice, walked him toward the end zone and explained that the goal line was. The coach has made at least four other jokes at the running back’s expense the past two weeks, and Smallwood doesn’t seem to mind.

But he’s keeping score, and when he does score again and silences his coaches, watch out.