I don’t know where to begin with this game. It was amazingly eventful, as one might expect from an athletic competition featuring five touchdowns and seven turnovers, but it featured as many points as Oklahoma scores on its own. Wheee! Let’s begin at the end and with the final play, which we should remember in perpetuity because the official who has the essential function of counting to 11 on every down simply did not. He instead saw a ghost and had to investigate.

Watch the play. See if you can find Casper. Here’s a hint.

Our man is at the top of the screen, first on the 25-yard line and then frantically waved out of the way by freshman linebacker David Long. The linebacker at the bottom of the screen, senior Justin Arndt, is waving for somebody to come over his way, because it’s definitely not supposed do be 2-on-1 up top and 1-on-3 at the bottom.

Jarrod Harper, a very good and very smart player, is on the wrong side of the field.

Then you can see defensive coordinator Tony Gibson, in his yellow top, and safeties coach Matt Caponi, to Gibson’s right, panic. Two players in one spot is a bad, bad sign. “I didn’t know if we had nine or 12 or 15,” Gibson said. Their instinctual reaction is that the Mountaineers have 12 on the field, and since Harper is where Gibson knows Long is supposed to be, Gibson and Caponi suspect Harper is the 12th man and beg Harper to come off the field. So Harper, who is telling the coaches the count is actually 11, does what many of us would do in that situation. He listens to his coaches … and runs off the field after the snap.

The No. 11 team in the country defends the final play of the game at Texas with 10 players.

Imagine if that play goes sideways for WVU. Yikes. (Aside: Remember when we had sad conversations about how unlucky the Mountaineers were for myriad reasons? I think we can stack and stow those. They’ve lived a good life this season, injuries aside.) Similarly, imagine if Texas quarterback Shane Buechele thought he had a free play and a 12-men-on-the-field penalty coming his way. Then it’s a great plan by Gibson! (Another aside: If this ball doesn’t get tipped backward and instead goes forward, No. 13 for Texas, erstwhile quarterback Jerrod Heard, has a touchdown.)

Anyhow, the sight of a player getting yanked off the field should sound an alarm for someone, and the officials decide to review it, never mind that one of the eight is in charge of counting to 11 and throwing a flag if he goes over. I was near the some of the officials at this point, and they were telling some WVU players that it was all going to be OK, but it was kind of surreal to see those same officials in the moment. They weren’t quite sure, were they? They wouldn’t have been there if they were. I suppose I’m OK with the review, but it’s indicative of the cloud that lingers above this conference. The gentleman who lorded over this NFL situation? The name should be familiar. He’s the head of the Big 12’s officiating.

Now, it’s not completely fair to tie all of that together — Walt Anderson was nowhere near Saturday’s game — but you get the idea. There’s a state of affairs, and it bothers people, people like Dana Holgorsen, who I can only remember ever acting the way he did Saturday one other time. He called a timeout that day solely to rip the referee.

Did Holgorsen call a timeout Saturday? Interesting question, and it was a key part of the game.

I tracked Holgorsen throughout this, because he was already angry about the officials not calling intentional grounding, calling it and then picking up the flag. He followed the head linesman and was talking to him between plays. Watch him at the top of the screen on the 47 with the H to his right. H has just scooted Holgorsen to the side so he can be on the line of scrimmage. Holgorsen leans in and says something, and H calls the timeout. There is no visual indication Holgorsen called a timeout … and consider the point and the tenor of the game and that Holgorsen likely wishes no less than food poisoning upon H. He’s not leaning in to whisper timeout. A timeout call would have been exaggerated and obvious. At the minimum, it would have been perceptible. I’m confident that Holgorsen reminded the guy that he had to stay close to H in case he needed to call a timeout becau–

Timeout!

Holgorsen has a litter of kittens. That is not the reaction of a person who made a mistake. That’s a person who was wronged and is fed up with it all. He’s clearly saying screaming, “I did not call that timeout.” Later, he says, “I was standing right there,” before his mouth disappears from our sight. It returns, and he says, “… if I wanted to call a timeout. And he said — ” Then he motions to the right, his head disappears and reappears, and you see him say, “… get away from me.” As in, the H told him, “get away from me.”

Finally, “And I said, ‘I am not calling a timeout.’ ” It gets so bad that linebacker Sean Walters, who once got a personal foul penalty in a game he didn’t even play in, intervenes and escorts Holgorsen from the scene.

What’s the big deal, you ask? WVU didn’t have a timeout 27 seconds later when Caponi, Gibson and Harper got confused. What we’re about to discover is that everything matters.

But today, all that matters is WVU is ranked No. 14 by the College Football Playoff with an 8-1 record overall and a 5-1 mark in the Big 12 before an enormous game Saturday at home against No. 9 Oklahoma. How did we get here? Let’s find out by taking a look a The Good and the Bad of WVU v. Texas.

Good: I’m serious. Everything matters. 

WVU had a few hunches about the freshman Buechele:

1. He will not throw it over the middle.
2. Since he’s not used to looking in the middle, he’ll have issues reading a blitz … and he wasn’t going to get a lot of help from his true freshman center.

This is the replay, and it’s an excellent view. It’s clear linebacker Al-Rasheed Benton and then Arndt are blitzing. You don’t see Kyzir White on the snap, because he’s still acting like a safety or an outside linebacker or whatever camouflage he’s using. The right tackle sticks with Adam Shuler, who was very good, and Arndt loiters just long enough before curling inside to get the right guard’s attention. White has a runway, and WVU gets a sack. It’s perfect.

Now let’s jump to the fourth quarter. That’s where D’Onta Foreman ordinarily takes over and was averaging 9 yards per carry this season. It seemed to be set up to be Foreman’s quarter, what with the score being 24-20, but there was one problem. Foreman was spent. He had 32 and 33 carries the prior two games and was at 26 after three quarters Saturday. The Mountaineers kept their eyes on this, and Gibson took note.

“He was a little banged up in the fourth quarter,” he said. “You could see him getting up slowly and grabbing his hand or his ankle or his hip. It was a physical game on both sides. They hit us, and we hit them.”

WVU is bending, bending, bending, and Texas is inside the 20. Foreman carries on second-and-10 and tries to hurdle his way for more yards.

Gibson likes what he saw here.

“I saw Foreman get up limping on the play before and thought, ‘Well, here’s a great opportunity on third-and-short. They’re probably not going to run him,’” Gibson said. “We dialed it up.”

Fatigued running back. Third-and-5. Yeah, blitz.

Yeah!

That is mean as hell, and it’s a precision strike. I can’t overstate how impressed I am with all of this. White doesn’t tip his hand, and figure Texas was on the lookout for this after the first sack. He lines it up and times it up perfectly, and he just obliterates poor Buechele. Textbook strike. Separates the ball from the quarterback. Recovers the fumble. And it had to happen right then and there.

Good: The K. Whites

Ka’Raun can’t catch a break. He pulls this off, and not only is it not the play of the day, it’s probably not even the play his parents want to talk about after the game. But in an encouraging development, White can catch a football again. Football’s funny. It wasn’t long ago when we were talking about how the offense wasn’t making big plays. Maybe it was the focus on that, but suddenly the basic plays escape WVU. White had the yips for a while. Shelton Gibson, Jovon Durante and Daikiel Shorts had drops Saturday.

But White did his job, save one block in the back penalty that ultimately didn’t matter. He made some tricky catches in traffic, and he did this. Again, I think he just had the yips, and you can get over that. Tyron Carrier, the receivers coach, makes his players catch so many footballs every day that the ability to catch a football can be restored pretty quickly. But WVU has to have a down-the-field threat on the other side of Gibson, if only so a defense can’t devote one safety to both receivers and live to talk about it. It’s not Gary Jennings. It’s not yet Marcus Simms. If White can be a consistent threat, never mind producer, up the rail, then the offense can be and do much more. He has to spook secondaries, and this ought to give people a scare. It’s an amazing play.

Overall, it was a pretty good day by the receivers. There were some exceptions, like the drops and some other things we’ll get to, but I’m not worried about the drops, certainly not from Shorts and not from White or Gibson when they’re so clearly capable of more things. Shorts is so fun to watch, not because of the tricky catches he makes with the tips of his fingers, but because he’s become an above-average threat after the catch in his final season and because he’s just so comfortable with his quarterback and so good at getting open before the catch. He’s become a pro.

If only he could get a little help in the open field.

But Gibson was good, even after a scare early in the game. (Aside: Someone asked in TFGD about targeting here, admitting that it’s not a traditional call, but I don’t think it’s a bad observation. How exacly is Gibson not defenseless there? Why was the defender able to use his helmet as a weapon there? I’ll hang up and listen.) The big development was three of Gibson’s four receptions came inside the numbers — and the exception was the one where he got smoked. (Another aside: Gibson said trainer Dave Kerns came onto the field and mocked Gibson by “whining like a puppy.” Gibson thought that was funny and laughed, but that hurt. “Then I realized I was all right,” Gibson said.)

This was an important play, no?

WVU seems to change from a run to a pass, and I want you to think about that. Defenses are wary of runs on third-and-9, and they’re not being dumb. I would have never predicted this as a reality the last time WVU was in the top 10, but here we are. So Texas is about to crowd the box, and Skyler Howard sees it and changes it. Gibson knows the safeties will be shallow, and he is hollering to his quarterback and telling him what’s about to happen. It’s weird that it was sort of surprising to see a very good receiver do very ordinary things.

Bad: The Skyler Howard portion of the program

Man, Howard was so good early in this game. So good. As good as I’ve seen him play. This throw is extraordinary, and it scrubs away White’s block in the back penalty. It’s 25 yards in the air and calibrated to hit a spot that Durante will be running through as it arrives. Encouraging!

And yet …

Three interceptions in a quarter. I did not see that coming. He started 11-for-14 for 155 yards an a touchdown. He followed that by going 10-for-21 for 114 yards and the three picks. I don’t know what happened. Was he thrown off by the second quarter and the drops and the six- and three-play drives? No one who I talked to knew. It’s the second three-pick game of his career. The first was last year at Oklahoma. This is an ordinary play he usually hits to Shorts, but the linebacker drops and covers Shorts and narrows the available space. I just don’t think Howard saw the safety.

He should have definitely seen the safety here.

Howard doesn’t make this decision, and I was wondering why he didn’t run. He does make that decision, but he had a couple chances to run against Texas and he didn’t. Shorts has a step on the defender, but it’s a tough, tough throw, and the safety is above the play the whole time. I think Shorts could have helped his quarterback, but certainly the quarterback could have tabled that conversation.

The first interception? It’s again not a great decision, but I think the receiver could have helped him some more here again. If White runs harder back to the ball, the defender doesn’t have a shot.

By the time the day was done, even with the hot start, there were seemingly as many iffy moments as there were impressive ones. It wasn’t particularly good, but it was good enough. If this happens last season, especially without Wendell Smallwood and Rushel Shell, the Mountaineers don’t win.

I think we know why.

Good: That defense

Here’s the co-longest play of the day for Texas, and I know it goes over Maurice Fleming’s head — again! — but there really isn’t much more he can do about this … or the other one. It’s the if-then involved with playing the 3-3-5 the way WVU does. A big part of the WVU defense is forcing or daring the opposing offense to make difficult plays. Texas did twice, and Fleming’s merely the common denominator when it could have been anyone.

The other long play of the day?

Probably shouldn’t have happened, either. Benton goes too wide and runs himself out of the play, but Long very nearly cleans up the mess, except he misses the tackle. He gets to the right place, though, and he saves face later. I thought Foreman was very good, if not overused, but WVU’s goal was to keep him in the ballpark. That was the long run, and this was the second-longest run.

Remember when we wondered about Rasul Douglas as a tackler? Remember when I said he was good for one big play a game? Neither do I! This was … huge? Foreman might have been one step away from tying the score. Instead, the drive stalls when — ahem — White sacks Buechele the first time. Theory: If Douglas doesn’t make this tackle, Gibson doesn’t spring that blitz on Buechele the first time and might not be encouraged to do it the second and decisive time.

Speaking of Douglas, we can have this conversation, right? First-team all-Big 12. But what about defensive player of the year? He’s at least worthy.

#WestVirgnia's Rasul Douglas leads all Big 12 corners with an 85.6 coverage grade. QB's targeting him have a rating of 33.3. pic.twitter.com/YiRaJGAUoX

— PFF College Football (@PFF_College) November 16, 2016

The above tackle was important. This tackle on fourth down was even more important. This interception wasn’t quite as important, but it was nevertheless ridiculous.

Good: David Long won’t stay blocked
We keep saying this about him, but it’s true. He shouldn’t make this play. He’s blocked by the right tackle, but he disengages and stops Foreman short of the sticks.

It brings on the field goal team, and Christian Brown blocked the field goal. As you noticed during the broadcast, Texas has a problem with getting kicks blocked. Brown said he waited all game for the left guard to lower his left shoulder and open a gap. It happened here, and Brown made it count. (Aside: Can you imagine if Joe DeForest’s special teams had this persistent problem with blocked kicks?)

Arndt and Long were very good — 12 and 10 tackles, respectively — and they had to be to help with Foreman but also to defend all those damn passes outside, and that gets real old at the end of a a game with 100 plays. But it was Long who tripped up Foreman, who was part of WVU’s knack for timing the snap in the first half and who had one of the four sacks that happened to be another one of the game’s key plays.

This precedes a punt, and it also probably shouldn’t have happened. It’s a really smart play, too. Long is spying the backfield, but watch Foreman. He sees Arndt screaming through the middle — and I have no idea how Arndt missed, because he’s probably best blitzing linebacker — but Long sees that happen and understands Foreman is out of the picture and Buechele has broken the glass and pulled the lever. He’s about to flee, but Long turns himself into a blitzer. Texas punt, WVU takes possession, runs 1:25 off the clock and forces Texas to call two timeouts.

Bad: Officiating

 

No surprise here. I’m willing to let a lot of stuff go — like pass interference on Kyzir that was really, really iffy — but targeting calls bug me. I thought Howard got brained on one play. He gave himself up, he was defenseless and it was as helmet-to-helmet as it gets by a defender who went low to make the play. It was totally preventable.

Having said that, I thought calling kick catch interference was correct. In the photo on the left, you can see the returner signal for a fair catch. Marvin Gross has time and room to leave it be. In the second photo, I’ve circled the ball in gold, and Gross is standing on the return man’s toes. I’ve talked to a few WVU people who think it was bogus, and they say Gross has allowed some space and is to the return man’s left, but, to me, the official can’t see that and Gross can’t create that sort of subjectivity.

Good: Wrinkles

 

That’s a new one! Twelve men on the field here, and WVU has to eat a timeout, which was kind of important later. The Mountaineers did do a few fun things, though, and they used Eli Wellman in a new way. He was a decoy!

People wrote and, presumably, read a lot about the fullback last week. We’ve seen WVU run quarterback power and quarterback counters and quarterback draws a lot, and it’s typically a good idea to watch the fullback and let him be your key, like we see right here. Simple quarterback counter play, which is a power play except that the guard takes on the defensive end. That’s become a staple for WVU.

The Mountaineers were without any depth at running back, but they still had to run the ball. That meant using Howard here and there as a running back, and WVU accounted for that as well as the way Texas likely prepared.

Follow the fullba — welp! So this is a counter with a counter. We’re in the matrix now, folks.

It’s one thing to use this in the red zone, as the Mountaineers often do, but they liked it so much that they used it in the middle of field with success. Just when the Longhorns had the answers, WVU changed the question and went back to the old way. That worked, too.

Howard’s legs weren’t terribly effective, but they were needed. WVU started a fun game of Preserve Kennedy McKoy, which meant a lot of empty sets and using Howard to run, just so McKoy would be available late in the game. You could see WVU putting that plan together, and you knew it was because Holgorsen knew he was going to need to run the ball late, which was pretty providential.

As for McKoy, give Lonnie Galloway some credit. He landed a keeper. McKoy played a lot, ran hard and scored twice inside the 10, which is something the offense was lacking when it was at full strength. (Aside: The motion wins on his first touchdown. Jennings pulls the middle linebacker, Tim Cole, to his left just enough to let Wellman step in and wall off an alley. On the second, McKoy simply sees something on the right that wasn’t on the left and handles that adroitly. He’s a suitable replacement, no?)

Bad: This story

I think WVU is frustrated by Gary Jennings and just won’t say it because it doesn’t want to create a larger problem. He’s excellent at catching the punt, and don’t get me wrong: That’s an upgrade. But if catching it is the job, then simply catching it is fine. I really think this penalty is on Jennings as much as it is on Elijah Battle. (Aside: Where’d he go?) If Battle doesn’t put hands on his man, that guy runs through Jennings and does who-knows-what just because Jennings won’t call a fair catch. This catch-and-escape act is needless, reckless and payable. You know how this ends, and the scary part is you know its avoidable.

Good: Texas defense

We like left guard Tony Matteo, but he has zero chance here. Zero. That’s a filthy and fluid move by middle linebacker Malik Jefferson. I felt like the Longhorns were creative and ambitious with the things they did to crowd the box, either before or after the snap, and they could cause trouble when they wanted to cause trouble. Losing Jefferson stung, but he was replaced by a senior who was a high school All-American. WVU’s offense had some problems, but Texas caused many of them.

That roster is loaded. I don’t know if Charlie Strong is going to get another year. It sounds like he’s on that route, but if he doesn’t win next year, he really should be gone, because that’s legitimately one of the most talented rosters going. Beat them now, is what I’m saying.

Bad: Strong
He lost at home to a team with one running back and four defensive linemen, a team that lost a fumble in the red zone and threw three interceptions in 15 minutes. WVU’s final nine possessions: Five punts, three turnovers, 10 first downs. The Mountaineers did very little of note to win that game on the road in the final 43 minutes. Oh, WVU punted and tackled and … well, that’s about it … but that can’t be decisive. It’s hard to forgive Strong for that. (Aside: The Mountaineers are a top-10 team. Forgetting that, after nine game now, does them a disservice.) I thought the end of the first half was weird, too. Texas had all the momentum, but Strong, with his overhauled offense and go-fast coaches, seemingly decided he was content winning 23-20.

Look at this!

Texas took over with WVU reeling and seeking halftime, and someone in burnt orange thought it was time to play some Roberta Flack and dial up a maddeningly methodical drive. It brought the game down to WVU’s level, which was something Texas could and should have avoided. The longest gain was 9 yards, and Buechele killed the possession when he spiked the ball on first-and-goal at the WVU 11. That cost Texas a down that the offense needed after Buechele threw short of the sticks on third-and-10. Instead of third-and-1, it was fourth-and-1, and the Longhorns backed into the half.

Good: Meanwhile …

This was unusual, and JaJuan Seider is not someone with whom to trifle. He doesn’t simply take this, either. (Side Good: Seider’s diplomacy Tuesday. “Everybody’s looks at it as we’re fussing, but we were trying to figure out what direction we needed to go. We thought we were going to have Russ, but I told Dana he wasn’t ready to go.” Molehills, man.)

Justin Crawford has just fumbled, which is bad, but by the looks of it, Holgorsen is pissed off because Crawford didn’t practice much during the week and then made a mistake in the game. I suspect he played because Seider believed Crawford could handle it, and he did have 129 yards and a touchdown the game before. But Holgorsen is, like many coaches, adamant about practicing before playing. So, in my head, Holgorsen is thinking, “If I had it my way, he wouldn’t have played and wouldn’t have fumbled.” And this was it for Crawford, who was hurt Oct. 15 and doesn’t have a new injury. It’s still, as Holgorsen told me, the same “lower extremity injury … below the waist.” But Crawford had a rep as a fumbler in junior college, and Holgorsen was not about to let that happen on his watch.

I don’t know, we might have to slip some chamomile in his Red Bull, but if you could pick your coach from Saturday’s possibilities, you’d take this guy, no?