Kansas football coach David Beaty had some high praise for WVU’s offense during this week’s Big 12 conference call. He has an up-close and personal look at that group this week, with the Mountaineers visiting the Jayhawks at noon Saturday. He’s been watching plenty of West Virginia film, so it’s an educated opinion.

WVU coach Dana Holgorsen, on the other hand, wasn’t ready just yet to anoint this crew — including QB Will Grier, RB Justin Crawford and WRs David Sills, Marcus Simms, Gary Jennings and Ka’Raun White — the second coming of Geno Smith, Tavon Austin, Steadman Bailey, et al.

“Collectively, they have a chance to be good. They’re not anywhere close to where I think they’ll be toward the end of the season. By no means am I ready to compare any of them to those guys of my past.”

Holgorsen may not be ready to compare, but we here at the Gameday blog have no problem doing just that. Below is the list of passing, rushing and total offense numbers from 2011 to 2017. Now, I totally understand comparing this season with past seasons isn’t entirely fair, since those prior seasons include games against Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and others that the 2017 team has yet to play. But we can at least see where this team is trending.

Passing offense

2011 — 346.8 ypg

2012 — 329.6 ypg

2013 — 262.1 ypg

2014 — 317.0 ypg

2015 — 251.5 ypg

2016 — 257.2 ypg

2017 — 369.3 ypg

Rushing offense

2011 — 122.69 ypg

2012 — 170.92 ypg

2013 — 148.67 ypg

2014 — 182.77 ypg

2015 — 228.23 ypg

2016 — 228.38 ypg

2017 — 212.0 ypg

Total offense

2011 — 469.5 ypg

2012 — 500.5 ypg

2013 — 410.8 ypg

2014 — 499.8 ypg

2015 — 479.7 ypg

2016 — 485.5 ypg

2017 — 581.3 ypg

Again, this year is through three games against a good Virginia Tech team, an awful East Carolina team and a FCS-level Delaware State team. But even if the numbers slip a little, WVU is on pace for the best passing and total offensive numbers of Holgorsen’s tenure. The questions are: Can they keep it up? If not, how close can they stay to those numbers?