Season’s finish will reveal how much ground WVU made up

Kansas State receiver Tyler Lockett burned West Virginia safety Karl Joseph during the Wildcats’ 55-14 win in Morgantown in 2012.

 

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — For teams not lucky or talented enough to be in the College Football Playoff waiting room, November becomes a month for reconfigured missions.

Their championship dreams dissolved, and in many cases, even their next-in-line goals already smashed, these also-rans face the cold completion of the season as a trial of conviction. West Virginia has suffered hard fades the past two seasons, and its current two-game slide sure makes for a repeating-history storyline.

And that makes Thursday night’s showdown against No. 12 Kansas State so crucial.

Crucial to the Mountaineers’ upperclassmen who have gone 2-8 in November during three Big 12 seasons. Crucial for bowl plans that could ascend to the Alamo or settle for the Liberty. Crucial to coach Dana Holgorsen for adding/subtracting dollars and maybe years to an inevitable contract extension. Crucial to the legacy of a season that once was emboldened with we’re-back swagger.

TCU’s game-ending field goal dashed some of that. West Virginia’s game-starting lethargy at Texas buried the rest.

Now, 10 days after taking their whipping in Austin, the Mountaineers can impact the Big 12 title chase by knocking K-State (7-2, 5-1) out of it. That’s the wide-angle perspective. Locally, it’s a chance to rekindle the emotional crest of a team actually getting better as the season wears on.

That happened during Holgorsen’s debut year, resulting in a league title and a trip to Miami for a mutilation of Clemson that would’ve made Dexter jealous. It happened under Holgorsen’s predecessor Bill Stewart in 2008 when WVU came within seven points of ending the year on a 10-game winning streak. It was a hallmark of the seven-game surge that closed out 2005 and made RichRod’s bunch beloved.

Of course, all those strong finishes occurred in the middling Big East, where West Virginia rarely faced deficits in talent, fan support or facilities. This new era in the Big 12 hasn’t been so forgiving. Witness WVU’s 10-15 league mark since joining.

In that regard, beating K-State would provide a stepping stone for West Virginia (6-4, 4-3) by clinching its first winning record in the Big 12. The resulting endorphin boost could ramp up enthusiasm for spending Thanksgiving weekend in Ames before WVU learns what the postseason brings.

“We still can have a 9-4 season—that’s a pretty solid season,” said defensive lineman Kyle Rose. “It’s not what we wanted, with us not getting the Big 12 championship, but there’s a lot to play for. We’re excited to play.”

Winning Thursday also would help assuage the embarrassment from two blowout losses to K-State—by a combined score of 90-26. (Did we mention the Mountaineers had five NFL draftees from those seasons while the Wildcats had only four?)

Cue the Bill Snyder career-achievement kudos, which are obligatory yet richly deserved:

“He probably gets more out of less than anyone in America,” said West Virginia offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson.

With two regular-season games and a bowl bid lingering, will West Virginia succumb to recent trends or make the most from its opportunities?





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