(As promised, here’s the F Double. It begins after the jump.)

It’s going to happen today, I promise. I’m in and out of the house office this morning for some work stuff, but I’ll finish and deliver it this afternoon.

Meanwhile, I don’t think we ever asked ourselves, “Self, what would happen if Bruce Irvin were to bear down on Skyler Howard.” But we have an answer now after Howard decided yesterday was the day to address some past tweets from Irvin.

@BIrvin_WVU11 Im not gonna sit back and act like I didn’t see these.. Guess I’m just “built different” cause I’m the only one to call u out pic.twitter.com/45w7RVkV80

— Skyler Howard (@SkylerDonHoward) February 9, 2017

It went on from there, and Smoking Musket has your comprehensive recap of a trying time that formed alliances on Team Irvin as well as Team Howard and in the middle.

Drew said:

So, exactly how terrible is it to work for Dana?

I’ve thought about this, but no one’s ever trashed him, either publicly or anonymously, upon leaving. I’ve talked to a number of the coaches after they left and probably even tiptoed toward that topic, but it’s never come up.  

I love you, Doug! said:

Losing a coach to Florida, I get. But WVU losing a coach to USF? To play Big East left-behinds?

Yeah, but a lot of people think USF is going to be New Year’s Six good. And Adams is from Miami and played for the Buccaneers. There’s hardly ever a lone explanation.

Wayne said:

The idea of Adams leaving to work with a loaded USF roster doesn’t sound particularly good for our CB situation.

… it’s not great, no.

Woodwork Inhabitant said:

Have I missed it? Has someone put together a comprehensive list of all D1 coaches and their assistant turnover (over the last five years or some other metric like losses per offseason). Ripping on Dana seems easy in our little corner of the country, but I want to see the numbers so I know whether to defend or deride. Until then, it’s just an annual February tradition to grumble about like chocolate and flowers.

Yeah, I couldn’t find it. What a database/resource that would be. But that column I wrote? I picked out 10 other schools — an independent and one school from the nine other Group of Five leagues. There was turnover. I did it a second time. There was turnover. One (Pitt!) topped WVU, but there’s been a few head coaching changes at that school. I did’t report “WVU ranks No. XX among the most assistants since Year X” because 1) It was going to be really hard 2) It seemed irrelevant. Everyone’s hiring, losing and firing coaches.

Oklahoma Mountaineer said:

Mike, is this a case of wanting to go back to FL or just not a good fit with Gibson?? I would think working in the Big XII as a secondary coach is hazardous to your professional health based on the offensive history of the league but going down a level makes no sense.

Some of the former, for sure. The latter? WVU needed a cornerbacks coach in a hurry last year, so who knows if these two were a good fit before, never mind after? I’m not sure. You make a good point about damage done to the reputation. I’ve had a few people tell me Adams wouldn’t mind getting back into the NFL, too. There’s nothing wrong with ambition.

Mack said:

It seems like the world of assistant coaches simply revolves around hitching your wagon to a head coach (or a situation) where you will put up big numbers or big wins and then you try to take some of the credit for it and parlay it into a head coaching job for yourself (or a higher paying assistant coaching job).

It’s almost like real life.

The 25314 said:

Not even counting year one and Casteel, Kirlav, Lockwood, and Dunlap, if you can find another coach who in 6 years at the same schools has gone through 24 assistants, I’d be happy to hear it.

I can’t do it, but I haven’t seen this through, either. Don’t forget, Dana’s actually getting up there in years now. There are only 23 other coaches who have been at one place for as long as Dana’s been here. I did look at the Big 12 and the coaches in place as long or longer than Dana. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are in the 20s since 2011. TCU and Kansas State are not. 

StraightOuttaNorthCentral said:

He’s young and served under Saban. Therefore, I’m going to assume he’s renting, not buying, in Morgantown and we shouldn’t get too used to him.

Doug Belk, everybody.

OhioMike said:

Certainly coming from a quality program. Seems like a good hire. More recruiting in Georgia you think? Or recruit position rather than territory?

I don’t know anything about Belk as a coach, except he worked with Kirby Smart and Nick Saban. He’s from Georgia, and WVU is trying hard with its recruiting efforts there, so maybe that helps. I can’t imagine he knows a ton about recruiting right now, and even if I’m mistaken, recruiting Alabama and recruiting WVU — or anywhere else, for that matter — has a learning curve.

Down South said:

The Rich Rodriguez shadow cabinet is really taking shape.

Tony Dews, everybody!

JAL said:

Interesting system. Hold open spots so that you can add transfers. Nice he has confidence some of the freshmen will be ready right away but they are freshmen and you never know. Can’t remember what they thought of Gibson when he came in but I remember high expectations but he did not deliver much his first season playing, 4 catches for 60 yards

Remember, Shelton Gibson sat out a year as a partial qualifier. He had to stay away from the team form one summer to the next. Most freshmen now will have it better just by enrolling in June or July.

Oklahoma Mountaineer said:

The relatively new dynamic of 4-year transfers has been good to WVU. To me, you hope this is round out work — as Fleming was last year — for depth who is ready to play. If you don’t have the attrition in that 14 class, how much dipping into the JCs/4-year transfers would be down I would think……am I wrong here?

Not wrong at all. You can have one without the other, but not as much. Let’s be honest: There’s some spin and damage control at play. It fits. It reads nice. But it’s crafty. 

Wayward Eer said:

I think that the we are seeing WVU use what has become a pretty common practice in college football as it relates to JC and graduate transfers. Most schools outside of the pure recruiting factories are open to these types of kids to a varying degree or another. While I think the failure of one or more recruiting classes can inflate the number of scholarships available to use in these situations, I do believe that there will always be situations/open scholarships that warrant JC or graduate transfers. I think we would all agree that we would like our recruiting class have more keepers and retentions be higher, but having open scholarships is good practice in my mind.

This fits with the prior question, too, but I think the players have two motives, as well. They can try to get it, um, “right” with a second chance in their career, since they’re leaving a place where it wasn’t working perfectly, and perhaps they see WVU as a good spot or remember it fondly from high school recruiting. Secondly, I think it’s fair to say some players at some positions look at the Mountaineers and say, “I can start there.” Fleming stated as much. WVU has to do this while it can, too. There’s been momentum in the past to shut down graduate transfers.

DSL CTeer said:

Question: Does holding a few unused scholarships have an impact on the quantity and quality of “preferred” walk-ons?

Doesn’t hurt. There are also late bloomers or late qualifiers or player who were injured for their senior years, too.

OhioMike said:

Last time Huggs moaned this much negativity after every game there were a couple players gone right after the season. Happening again?

That was much more dramatic and obvious than this, but I do sense some similarities. He’s pretty clearly focused on one older player in particular and tries to handle another differently. I think he’s also pushing freshmen to get to where he needs them to be, too. Bolden’s role is — or will have to be — farther along quicker than we anticipated, right?

Michael Lucas:

They need a little discord. Call them out. Don’t get crazy or overly critical, but Huggs bashing them after every loss for effort isn’t doing anything to breed consistency. I see no issue with seniors/leaders letting everyone know who/why we’re able to go from national championship-caliber basketball to miss the NIT-caliber basketball in the span of 8 minutes.

They probably like to think they feed off of this sort of stuff. It’s an odd mix of players. It’s best leaders are quiet types. It’s loudest players are not the leaders. And there are three or four freshmen in sort of make-or-break roles, and you never know how a freshman or teammates feel about a freshman coming forward.

avb31 said:

To me the success of this team is all about Esa. And, to a lesser extent Adrian. The beauty of this team is that most of the parts are interchangeable. We have multiple guards. Not playing well, Dax? Cue Teyvon. Don’t have it today, JC? Go get em, Tarik. It’s the same deal with Macon, Watkins, and Konate.

But, we don’t have another Esa. Nobody else can do what he does. And we really don’t have another Adrian either. If those two play well, we win. If one or both don’t come to play, it will be a struggle regardless of who we play.

Here’s hoping we get the best from both the rest of the way.

Agreed, except that I’d say Adrian can back up Adrian. He has enough layers to contribute or even be invaluable if one part or two parts of his game are missing. He even held together that lineup with Bolden, Myers, West and Konate for a few minutes the other night. Ahmad scores with jumpers or drives, and Ahmad passes pretty well, but as an observer, it seems he can retreat if he’s missing shots or having drives taken away. He doesn’t rebound or guard much, and he’s not a keystone for odd lineups. Still, I actually thought his defense and his scoring (free throws!) were encouraging Wednesday. 

CC Team said:

I’m still on my one note of late. Yes, WV wouldn’t have won the game without its freshman last night. Yes, Adrian was his usual steady self. But the game was virtually tied until Esa came alive. The last 10 minutes of the game he scored 8, and had a nice drive and dish for an Adrian 3. WV’s fortunes will blow hot and cold based on Esa’s contributions. He doesn’t have to dominate, and in fact things often turn bad when he forces it. But WV needs his 8 to 10 points, rebounding and effort. When they don’t get it they look bad (first 30 minutes last night). When they get it they look much better (last 10 minutes). Look back at the losses. A consistent pattern exists.

Keep driving that train. 

smeer said:

at this point in the season, I’m not sure what three hour practices accomplish. You (should) know yourself and your teammates, you bone-up on your opponent’s tendencies. game day walk through is slow it down and go over opponents strengths and weaknesses. the game is practice – learn adjust – play different in the second half. You should be in the best shape of your life so you maintain it rather than improve it.

Learn some things from the track guys from preseason to post-season championship meets. Don’t burn out – stay conditioned by pacing rather than full-out every practice.

these are men but just barely and their bodies are still growing and developing. the NBA regular season effort is a joke other than the last quarter so it is comparing apples to oranges with the NBA schedule to college.

one thing I’ve noticed recently is the “Esa penetration to Adrian on the three point line” is bank. Adrian has not missed in at least the last four games on that combo kickout. We need more of it.

when Esa tries to do too much, he gets schooled. When he picks his moments and plays within himself, he is the difference maker

Fear not. WVU isn’t doing many three-hour practices these days. As much film as practice lately, and Thursday’s workout was basically a half-court session that was like a walk-through. Sunday’s going to be light, too. Huggins even said this Iowa State-Oklahoma State-Oklahoma-Kansas State-Kansas stretch forced him to adjust, so even the travel troubles aren’t total deterrents. 

hoot said:

Nice win. One thing I am thoroughly enjoying is having a bonafide eraser with hops protecting the rim.
Can I pull a Caz here? Swatgaba Konate may turn out to be our best rim defender since ____________? I’ll park my keyboard and wait (okay, it’s not as catchy as hang up and listen, but more accurate).

Good question. I think this is a quick conversation: D’or Fischer. Joe Alexander was interesting, too. Wellington and Flowers blocked shots, but truly protecting the rim is an altogether different skill, and Konate already has it, though in a raw form that’s still fun to watch. 

Mack said:

The funny thing about Howard is that he responds to the criticism as if people are attacking him unfairly. But, generally, everyone is just saying he was an awful quarterback. The fans booed when he was playing poorly. There was literally nothing else they booed or criticized him for. As an example, half of the criticism of Holgorsen is that he isn’t from West Virginia, wears a black shirt, and has ridiculous hair. None of those have anything to do with wins and losses.

I’d like to think that if I was in a similar situation, I’d probably respond with, “I agree with the fans. I should be playing better and it bothers me even more than it bothers them.” Skyler plays a victim role. Glad to move on.

It’s so weird but so consistent with Howard’s personality.

smeer said:

Bruce shoulda kept quiet even in the heat of that trainwreck game

a month and a half later, the chip on Skyler’s shoulder got the better of him, when it was already well forgotten

and now Mountaineer nation is divided into Team Bruce and Team Skyler

ego and idiots on full display through twitterverse

Eh, he’s no different than any other upset fan during that game. Not sure that he has to be different, but I understand why people say he does. But why was Howard searching for tweets he wasn’t tagged in? And why respond six weeks later?

Down South said:

True story. My 18 yo son, who is, I’m sure, not on the list of people Skyler Howard follows, tweeted during the first half of the Super Bowl that Tom Brady was out there throwing like Skyler Howard. Almost immediately after the game ended, Skyler tweeted back at him to “eat em”, referring to his words. My son thought it was funny and quoted the tweet with the laughing emojis. Skyler promptly blocked him. It takes a healthy amount of self-indulgence to be Twitter searching your name to call people out on their tweets about you during the Super Bowl. I think Skyler needs to step away from the Twitter app.

Down South (also) said:

He didn’t tag him in the tweet. He would have had to search his own name to find it in the two hours after he tweeted it. We had a good laugh about it.

I wonder if he reads us?

Skyler said:

Skyler would have been better off to not take the bait, but Irvin was out of line too.

It was the harshest and heaviest dose of reality you can imagine.

Clarence Oveur said:

Bruce and Skyler wear their respective hearts on their respective sleeves. Neither is going to back down, which is the mentality you need to play FBS level football.

They come from very different perspectives. Bruce was beloved during his time in Morgantown, Skyler less so – although I’m sure history will be kind to him even if I and many others were not. A lot of that had to do with the positions they play. Bruce was spotlighted when he made a good play. Skyler was spotlighted every time he touched the ball. That’s the nature of being the QB. As I’ve said many times here, if you want to be a quarterback you’ve got to develop thick skin and understand that the crowd reaction is going to change on a whim. Skyler seemed to have a hard time doing that.

I said this on Twitter and will repeat it here: instead of Skyler Howard letting his feel-good story do the talking, he let his sense of entitlement get the better of him.

He’s still looking for respect. He’s not going to get it anytime soon. It will come down the road when nostalgic fans look back and see “hey, we won 10 games and Skyler put up some good numbers despite being a totally unheralded recruit…that’s praiseworthy”. They will likely have forgotten what a petulant child he was when he played here.

Bingo.

avb31 said:

It’s February and we are still talking about Skyler Howard’s feelings. Let’s hope Grier isn’t this “emotional”

This got me thinking: In the pre-Twitter era, who would have been the worst about this particular behavior? I have a few nominees, but I’d love to hear your suggestions. 

Michael Lucas said:

Skyler’s tweets are poorly aimed and he seems to panic and drop the phone often. Bruce’s got this.

Enjoy the weekend!