The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board

A quick note about what’s next. No. 14 West Virginia is just a few days away from a game it’s had circled for a long time.

“It’s nothing about the other team,” defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said. “It’s 100 percent about us. It was to see where we were going to be on Dec. 3, 2016, to see where we’re at as a program.”

After that? Win or lose, the Mountaineers are off to a bowl, and a win or loss might not matter. Here are the likely scenarios:

Alamo Bowl: Oklahoma makes the College Football Playoff, Oklahoma State goes to the Sugar Bowl, WVU goes to the Alamo and plays a Pac-12 team, like USC. I don’t know how Oklahoma gets in, though. Get ready for this comedy: The Big 12 missed the inaugural CFP in 2014 because it didn’t have a championship game — or something like that. Now the Big 12 has decided to restore the title game, and it’s quite possible the SEC and Big Ten championship games won’t mean a thing Saturday. You think about that. I understand Alabama is in the final four regardless of the outcome. No qualms with that. But it seems Ohio State is in as well, and it’s not in the Big Ten title game. Penn State, which handed the Buckeyes their only loss but lost to Pitt (more on them in a minute) and Michigan, needs to win against Wisconsin and needs some help to get into the final four. Wisconsin, which lost to Michigan and Ohio State, needs to beat Penn State and get a little more help. I’m not saying it’s the wrong outcome, but it’s going to be topical and it ought to call into question the value and/or necessity of the championship game format. I’ll also repeat for the zillionth time that the CFP screwed up majorly by having two years of runway and never establishing any uniformity with regard to non-conference play requirements, the number of conference games and a league championship game.
Russell Athletic Bowl: Oklahoma or Oklahoma State goes to the Sugar as the Big 12 champ because the league won’t have a CFP team. The other goes to the Alamo. The Russell Athletic scoops up WVU. Opponents? Well, if Clemson loses to Virginia Tech in the ACC title game, the Hokies go to the Orange and, man, wouldn’t Orlando like Clemson and wouldn’t the Tigers like a chance to tidy up 70-33? That’s a long shot, though. Say Clemson wins and makes the CFP. The Orange could pick anyone and would likely choose between Louisville and Florida State. The other could be in the Russell Athletic, and the bowl wouldn’t complain about getting Lamar Jackson or a Florida team. I don’t think it’ll happen, but I wouldn’t discount horse trading and a chance to get the Backyard Brawl revived ahead of schedule. Pitt’s a hot name right now. I suspect Virginia Tech and/or WVU might push back against any possibility those two play in the Russell Athletic because they open the season against one another next fall, and though the bowl doesn’t care about that, it would be hard for the organizers to look past the other possible matchups.
I think that’s it. I don’t see a WVU loss and a Kansas State win changing any of the above, and a Kansas State v. Texas A&M matchup in the Texas Bowl will be popular.

I just closed my eyes and swung. Left me crouching in a blaze and fall. All you ever did was text me. Yeah, you text me. My edits are in [brackets].

1:38:
Bad feeling about a blow out in Ames

1:08:
Sitting here watching Michigan/oh st and oh st has a linebacker named jerome baker…bet he gets drug treated all the time haha

3:31:
Why did I just learn there is a player for Michigan named Taco?

3:49:
Technical difficulties. Just got here. I see we’re already [shoddy]

3:52:
So White & Wonderful!!

3:53:
That pass to white was a bullet.

4:02:
Finally, a useful review! [bravo]!

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.