Hey, the blog is up and running again!

Fun stuff on the evolution of his offense, from the roots to what’s blossoming now.

Dana Holgorsen said at his weekly press conference that suspended cornerback Daryl Worley has been cleared by the university to practice. Holgorsen didn’t say much else beyond that, though, clearly, we tried.

If you’re following along at home, consider this the next step in what started during WVU’s open week.

That’s bad. Bad form. Bad look. It’s Brian Baldinger’s Finger Bad, and just like that crooked stick, I don’t think there’s any fixing this.

You’ve got a Big 12 team playing a conference game with a Fox Sports crew and it’s on a channel affected by solar flares or whatever. It’ s not bad enough you can’t get to games that are 12 hours away. Now you’ve got to deal with electromagnetic disturbances 93 million miles away.

You’ve got a Big 12 team playing a conference game and it’s getting jerked around by an ACC game that comes on later. Four weeks ago you had a Tier 3 game that was handled with the aplomb of a tee ball run down.

I watched a ton of World Cup soccer this summer. This stuff never happened on Univision. I watched a lot of Rutgers v. UConn through the lean Big East years for crissakes and this never happened. When I wasn’t vehemently anti-Comcast, I used to watch city council meetings on the public access channel. This never happened.

Flares! Like this is Stamford freaking Bridge.

I feel for you, and I hate to tell you, but there’s no changing this. That’s your Tier 3 partner for the foreseeable future and that’s the carrier around these parts when the game is on Fox Sports Net.  The worst part is that you can’t have something seemingly ordinary just occur normally and without complication or circumstance, and you can’t get anyone who matters to side with you. Wait, does that sound familiar?

How did we get here? Let’s find out by taking a look at the Good and the Bad of WVU v. Kansas.

Bad: Of course
I’d reset my Point About Special Teams, but it’s be too hard to hear me over the din of frustrated people reaching out to help others aboard this crowded bandwagon. It’s just not reliable. The Mountaineers lose contain early here and let it get outside and Nick O’Toole, almost unbelievably, can’t shove the guy out of bounds. Look, a punt at the end of the fourth quarter of a one-sided affair is, in theory, inconsequential. I’d accept that if the 11 guys covering it didn’t jog down the field with that attitude — and judging by my notes and my eyes, those are your starters. But here’s the point: Even the punt at the end of a one-sided came can’t just happen without complication, and the Mountaineers don’t seem to grasp that. Fourteen points for the special teams Saturday. You’re naive if you think this won’t cost the Mountaineers during the final seven games.

We saw a preemptive adjustment from West Virginia Saturday in advance of the next four opponents and the spread offenses Texas Tech, Baylor, Oklahoma State and TCU like to use. Shaq Riddick started at defensive end and Ed Muldrow started at Sam linebacker, and the latter moved Brandon Golson to situational defensive end. It was a test drive, but it’s going with the Mountaineers as they move forward.

“We had time during part of the off week, and I didn’t alert you for obvious reasons because we were preparing for an opponent and we didn’t want to tip them off,” Holgorsen said. “But moving forward, it’s something we’re interested in doing more.”

WVU only has seven sacks this season and the one by Wes Tonkery against Kansas came after a bad snap on third-and-4. Saturday’s experiment should make WVU more potent, which is needed.

Texas Tech, Baylor, Oklahoma State and TCU are spread offenses and send four or five receivers on a majority of the pass plays. WVU has to commit linebackers and defensive backs to covering the pass, but can’t give the quarterbacks time to watch the coverage deteriorate or to let receivers freelance. That means relying on the defensive line to create pressure.

“Brandon’s very explosive,” defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Tony Gibson said. “I think he gives us the best chance to get pressure on the quarterback when we only rush three or four.”

It’s getting harder and harder to make it through the texts from game day, which is to say it’s getting too easy to thumb off these texts. They’re too good. Saturday when close to as expected, with one or two not-insignificant deviations. WVU was never threatened by Kansas and mostly strolled to a 33-14 win. I say “mostly” because, well, Mario Alford is really fast, but also because the Mountaineers kind of slipped and stumbled throughout the second half and did not play with the sort of authority that was somewhat expected based on the results of their first four games.

Then again, Kansas had four games for us to learn from. Its defense is as was advertised and did well to complicate matters for the Mountaineer, who got the looks and did the things they wanted on offense, but were also frustrated by the way the Jayhawks matched. That’s probably worrisome, and that much, among many other things, is clear in the texts.

This heats up as the first half clock ticks down and then locks in on particular targets and at predictable points thereafter. Like I said, close to as expected.

I misplace my texts everytime I be zee’d up. I was caught puttin Christmas trees up, and it was Easter. My edits are in [brackets].

3:35:
Swear i just saw joe mazzula selling wool hats

3:48:
This game already doesn’t feel right.  I miss the weeble king.

3:50:
Do the circle!

4:07:
GAM gets it going

4:08:
Fox announcer really impressed with Shelton Gibson on that long pass

4:13:
Regional cable means anthropomorphic fast food bag ads, I guess…

4:13:
Without Charlie, the Jayhawks look better fed.

4:28:
Is there a rule that we can’t throw it to White in the red zone?

4:28:
No spy on this QB?  Really?

4:28:
WVU facing interim coaches 100 pounds lighter than their predecessors a sterling 6-0-1 all time versus the spread

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Two hours before kickoff

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You are looking live at the ominous and unusual sky above Mountaineer Field. There’s only a minimal chance of in-game rain in the forecast — it’s drizzling as I type — but it’s going to be windy and chilly and certainly windier and chillier than what West Virginia is accustom to so far this season. I suppose it’s good preparation for next weekend in Lubbock.

The really weird part about this is that on the other side of the stadium, it looks like an ideal autumn Saturday.

Anyhow, we’ve been through this game all week and we’ve more or less eliminated any chance for a Kansas victory with little argument. I would like to point you in the direction of one thing we haven’t really discussed with much depth: The Kansas defense.

It’s not bad and it suffers because it is routinely put in bad spots by the offense. Check out last week’s drive chart in the 23-0 loss to Texas. The four scoring drives covered 18, 13, 4 and 27 yards. Texas is a mess on offense, but the Jayhawks didn’t let the Longhorns clean thins up at their expense.

Don’t get me wrong: The offense is very bad, and that’s going to affect the defense, but the defense is better than the reputation-by-association suggests. That doesn’t really matter today because WVU’s offense is better than the Texas offense, but if it’s windy or wet and Clint Trickett can’t spin it or the receivers can’t cut and dash like they want against he man-to-man coverage, then this could be more interesting than logic predicts.

Hit me in the post …

Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which would like to take a moment and thank you all for your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time. I was touched by the overwhelming support from all directions and avenues. Email. Texts. Tweets. Phone calls. Messages in a bottle. Strangers. Students. Friends. Families. Peers. Coaches. Actual pandas.

It’s hard to articulate exactly how I feel at this moment, and I’ll probably need time to figure it all out, but please know it all means a lot.

Rest assure, we’ll make it through this, though. I got past Will Clark’s abrupt retirement. I’ll soldier on here.

Halftime will never be the same. Quick Change will never be more sigh-inducing. Stacks of bowls will never do what a unicycle and a diminutive Shanxi intended them to do again.

But we will always have our memories. Red Panda. For life.

Onto the Feedback. In all black.

smeer said:

Dana’s not gonna have Charlie around to make him nauseous.

So much depth to such a short comment. But let’s stay on topic. The gist of the reaction to the Weis firing was “I can’t believe he got/took that job in the first place!” Confession: I used to be a big fan of his brand of football, and I was surprised it didn’t work for him at Notre Dame … and quite clearly, it was him. He lost a lot of luster off his own golden dome, so to speak, but he kept getting big-time gigs, up to and including a head coaching job in a BCS league. And when it happened, it did feel really unusual, like, you knew you’d be writing about the smoldering wreckage in a few seasons. And voila! But I’d like to point you to one of those oh-this-is-gonna-be-bad moments from Big 12 media day in 2012. Relive his press conference in all it’s wonder.

I haven’t even gotten to the other thing that has deeply troubled me the other day, though it, too, involves red, but let’s knock this out first.

WVU traveled all the way to Albuquerque for last night’s men’s soccer match … mostly because WVU is without the benefit of a reputable and RPI-raising conference and must go to great lengths to build a postseason resume. The postseason is quite likely unattainable as an at-large at the current rate, and Wednesday night’s result against the 13th-ranked team in the nation was one reason why.

New Mexico 6-1 WVU.

So, yeah, 11-on-10 isn’t easy, especially on the road against a ranked opponent and 1,900-plus antagonists. I haven’t talked to Marlon, but I’m going to guess MLB is not pleased with the decision that showed one of his center backs red 16 seconds into the match.

Rule: Denies the opp team a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opp by DELIBERATELY handling the ball. Red or not? http://t.co/0rqQIv3tzj

— WVU Soccer (WVU) (@WVUMensSoccer) October 2, 2014

I’m not one to get worked up over awards, never mind watch lists, but yesterday made me growl and laugh. The Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award revealed its 15 semifinalists. West Virginia’s Clint Trickett, only one of the nation’s most prolific passers, but also an academic senior, which is a requirement, wasn’t included.

That’s absurd.

It’s doubly dubious when you see who made the cut, a list that includes a guy who got pulled on the road and had his backup win the game, missed the following week with a leg injury and will now split snaps with a guy with a mullet. Nothing against that guy. I don’t know him. But I know Trickett deserves the spot more based on the first five weeks.