We’re down to 16 undefeated teams, and West Virginia, despite more than enough problems at home Saturday, found a chair when the music stopped. (Sadly, the Mountaineers were kicked out of the 500/200/30 club.)

Take it. Just take it. The story could be very different today.

West Virginia was shut out in the first half, trailed 13-0 in the third quarter, lost a fumble near the goal line a while later, rallied to take the lead in the fourth quarter and then witnessed a rare special-teams mistake by the Wildcats in a 17-16 win Saturday before 61,701 at Mountaineer Field.

“Proud of our team for having the courage to go out there and do that in the second half,” the WVU coach said. “It was a weird game. I felt like we were able to move the ball. We just couldn’t get any points on the board, for a number of reasons. Kansas State’s pretty good. That defense is pretty good. They’re well coached and hard to beat.

“Much like last week, just finding a way to win is the most important thing. You’ve got to be able to do some things right in all three phases in order for that to happen.”

The last time WVU won a game while scoring fewer points? A 13-7 home win against USF in December 2008 — that was the Whiteout that definitely was not about Pat White. But WVU’s rarely in the teens. It’s happened eight times in Dana Holgorsen’s 68 games, and only once since the start of the 2014.

Entering the season, WVU was 3-17 under Holgorsen when it failed to scored fewer than 30 points with a 12-game losing streak. 

• 2011: 2-2
• 2012: 0-3
• 2013: 1-5
• 2014: 0-3
• 2015: 0-4

This year, he has sub-30 wins against Missouri and Kansas State, and let’s spend a moment on those. Missouri was a fireworks factory with 23 touchdowns in three games after the opener, but it got lost somewhere on the way to LSU last night. K-State plays and wins games like the one it played and lost. Got everything it wanted, except a made field goal. These were two different challenges for the Mountaineers, and they cleared both. Prettily? No. With some luck? Certainly. Should anybody over there apologize for either? Nope.

And WVU didn’t have it easy. K-State’s defense is pretty good, surely the best the Mountaineers have seen thus far and perhaps the best they’ll see all season. The tackles, and especially the right tackles, had their hands full. Skyler Howard reverted. If you ever wondered what it was like to witness, never mind sort out, a kicker controversy, now you know. Starting cornerback Antonio Crawford and backup safety Toyous Avery didn’t play. Crawford’s replacement, Maurice Fleming, left in the first half, and now we find out he’s had a back issue all season and that it finally got the best of him.

But when the game was there for the taking, WVU took it. For the second straight week, the outcome was a ball in the air, and for the second straight week, the Mountaineers made the most of it.

First, there was the truly absurd catch by Shelton Gibson

That preceded WVU’s first touchdown.

“That was probably one of the sparks we needed,” Howard said. “We needed him to go up for it. I trust that guy to go get the ball, no matter what the situation is for him. For him to get his head ripped off and still catch it showed how hungry he is when the ball’s in the air.”

There was a key Rasul Douglas interception near the end of what was not his best day.

There was the heady play by the quizzical sophomore. Pressure broke the pocket, and Howard had to roll to his right. The Mountaineers initiated their scramble drill, and Jovon Durante raced from the left side of the field across the back of the end zone and availed himself to Howard.

If Shelton Gibson isn’t the fastest player on the team, then Durante is, and he was zooming toward his spot. Howard was moving at a much slower speed in the same direction and placed a ball in a window that Durante hit at precisely the right moment.

WVU didn’t have it easy there, either, but it worked when it had to work, and the unquestionably talented receiver who’s been known to drop some passes held onto a winner.

And finally, K-State, the First Family of Special Teams, missed a field goal, but WVU complicated that with a tackle for a loss on second-and-10 at the 24-yard line. That was the eighth TFL of the day. The same defense had nine in the first three games. I’m not saying that’s the reason Matt McCrane’s kick veered left, but maybe second down influenced third down. Maybe that’s why K-State passed and didn’t run.

And hey, all three sides of the ball! The most significant for the Mountaineers, though, had to be Tony Gibson’s side, especially in the second half, when WVU couldn’t let the Wildcats score more than they did. K-State got three points after halftime and only got into the red zone once after three visits in the first half. Definitely the best the defense has played this season.

Meanwhile, it felt much different on the other sideline, and while WVU was glad to have a game it believed it deserved, the Wildcats were miffed they let one go that they felt they should have won.

A win here, combined with what might be the weakest field in the 22-year history of the Big 12, would’ve given Kansas State reason to believe. West Virginia had what might be the best non-conference win of any league team, against Missouri. K-State’s only loss was at Stanford, a top 10 team entering the weekend. K-State should’ve won this one, too.

The Wildcats led throughout, pulling the magic trick of turning a 2016 college football game into a contest of defense and field position. This is the K-State formula. Instead, one of the smallest guys on the team is standing tall in front of cameras and notebooks and taking blame for a much bigger failure.

“To cost our team the first conference game, it’s big,” McCrane said. “And I apologize for that.”

If you made a list of the reasons K-State lost this game, and you are a functioning adult, you might run out of paper before you got to McCrane — and not just because college kickers from that distance miss about four of 10 tries.

“They all hurt,” K-State coach Bill Snyder said. “They all hurt. Particularly when you know you’re probably good enough. We let them get away.”