MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — While he frequently emphasizes West Virginia players familiarizing themselves with the atmosphere of road games, coach Dana Holgorsen isn’t worried about crowd noise becoming a factor Saturday against No. 15 Oklahoma.
By practicing silent snap counts, his offense shouldn’t sacrifice functionality or be prone to false starts before a capacity crowd of 82,212 at Memorial Stadium.
“We’ve been able to do everything silent since I’ve been here,” Holgorsen said Tuesday. “We can be multiple in our snap counts and we can be multiple in our signals.”
The No. 23 Mountaineers (3-0) are O-for-the-Big 12 against Oklahoma (3-0), trying to reverse a three-year slide. While the Sooners required some grit during a 31-24 double-overtime win at Tennessee, Holgorsen’s club dominated its nonleague opponents by a 130-23 margin.
Not that he’s worried about his team suddenly forgetting what it’s like to play a tight game. Nine of West Virginia’s games last season featured one-score margins in the fourth quarter, with three decided on the final play.
“I think you can draw upon the previous years,” Holgorsen said. “Our game against (Oklahoma in 2014) was competitive in the second half. We’ve got a lot of guys who have been in these games, they understand football and have played a lot of football.”
Watch Holgorsen’s complete news conference above, in which he heralds last season’s 4-1 road record, feigns surprise at his team returning to the Top 25 and discusses a nanny connection to the Oklahoma coaching staff.