You are looking live at what was the beginning of the Silly Season back in September. You may or may not remember this photo. We barely, I think hope, dignified it here at the time, if we mentioned it at all. But that is indeed an airplane with LSU paraphernalia. It was indeed parked at Hart Field at Morgantown’s airport. It was indeed the day after LSU fired Les Miles.

The if-then scenario people actually subscribed to was that the Tigers were about to hire Dana Holgorsen. The Tigers just fired Les Miles and were in a hurry to hire Dana Holgorsen. The Tigers had just fired Les Miles after trying and failing to fire him at the end of the 2015 season and were in a hurry to hire Dana Holgorsen, who was trying to recover from an 0-for-October at about the time LSU was trying and failing to fire Miles last year.

Right. Right. There’s an explanation for why that plane was parked in that spot on that day, but I don’t want to share that with you because it might suggest I looked into it. But that saga is officially over now because LSU has decided to keep Ed Orgeron, and that nevertheless has a link to WVU.

Whenever a program retains an interim coach, that decision is going to stimulate opinions and people are going to reference what happened to the Mountaineers on that night early in the year 2008. WVU chose to keep an interim coach. So did Clemson, by the way, but, sure. Fine. Let’s revisit that, shall we?

Bill Stewart followed three 11-win seasons with three 9-4 records. He not only did not keep the momentum going forward, but he lost it rather quickly. He didn’t hire a vibrant staff, and he swung and missed at his first choice for offensive coordinator. He did’t recruit thoroughly or effectively enough to replace and replenish.

Who, though, were the options? WVU interviewed Doc Holliday and Butch Jones before the Fiesta Bowl and was planning to interview Skip Holtz and Mike Locksley — and Stewart! — afterward. I also know that there was one head coach from a BCS conference who contacted WVU and wanted to be considered but balked at interviewing because it could not get out that he was interviewing, but I don’t believe the Mountaineers ever considered that to be a possibility. It was nevertheless an intriguing name, and it spoke to a point I’ll make in a moment. But Holliday might have been more successful than Stewart was when it came to hiring a staff. Jones did not enjoy the profile he enjoys now. Holtz has been around and hadn’t been connected with a top job since he went to USF. Locksley never made it as far or as high as people predicted.

In short, the Mountaineers didn’t have a lot of possibilities with which to work, and they might have made a mistake and perhaps a bigger mistake if they picked another candidate, but it remains inexplicable to me that they never gave themselves a chance to flaunt the Fiesta Bowl win and the returning talent and see who might be interested. They would have gotten on the phone or in the office with a caliber of coach who might not have picked up the receiver or opened the door before, no?

We’ll never know. LSU had a lot of time to coordinate this change, and it had options. It is LSU, after all. But it also seems the Tigers were played by the agent of new Texas coach Tom Herman, and LSU wasn’t going down that road. It’ll now empower Orgeron to assemble a sliced bread coaching staff, which was always going to be difficult at WVU. It’s not difficult at LSU. Oh, and Herman’s agent is Dana Holgorsen’s agent, so prepare yourself for that rumble.