FRISCO, Texas — When he’s not battling zombies on Fortnite, linebacker David Long devotes free time to battling the ghosts of old West Virginia games on YouTube.
The losses against Oklahoma sting the most.
Standard-setters in the Big 12, the Sooners have swept all six meetings since WVU entered the league in 2012. Since Long came aboard three years ago, the outcomes have turned particularly lopsided:
Oklahoma won 44-24 in 2015 to knock West Virginia out of the Top 25. OU rolled 56-28 in 2016 to banish WVU from league title chase. During last season’s finale, OU coasted 59-31 while piling up 649 yards.
Long won’t allow himself to believe the Sooners’ talent warrants such a string of blowouts.
“I’m a sore loser, and I know we haven’t given them our best shot,” he said. “I know how good we can be and it’s not showing. That’s what irritates me the most.”
Long points to pregame skirmishes and extended bouts of trash-talking as evidence of his teammates losing their discipline. That leads to missed assignments and coverage busts, the kind Baker Mayfield exploited like an All-American quarterback should.
“When we play Oklahoma there’s always a lot of emotions involved,” Long said. “We’re too hyped, instead of settling down and just playing the game.”
Picked second in the Big 12 this season, the Mountaineers once again draw Oklahoma for a final-week matchup. Winning that game in Morgantown “would mean everything,” said fifth-year senior left tackle Yodny Cajuste. That could send WVU to the Big 12 title game, possibly for a rematch against the Sooners,who are seeking to four-peat.
“Our prior teams didn’t believe in ourselves against Oklahoma,” Cajuste said Tuesday. “This team is different.”
West Virginia joins Texas Tech and Kansas as the only Big 12 teams who haven’t beaten OU since the current 10-team iteration of the Big 12 formed under realignment. Of late the Sooners have widened the divide between the rest of the league, going 26-2 the past three seasons.
“They’ve got the best players,” Mountaineers coach Dana Holgorsen said. “They’re recruiting at a very high level and there’s a talent gap. Plus they have a lot of trophies they look at, so they expect to win.”
With Oklahoma sporting top-line facilities and a 34-year-old coach who’s poised to keep the program humming, it won’t be easy for other programs to break through.
“Everybody else has to improve,” said Holgorsen, who worked alongside OU’s Lincoln Riley at Texas Tech for five years. Their coaching friendship endures but the players on both sides aren’t chummy.
Long even knocked down the notion of conference solidarity leading him to cheer for Oklahoma during last season’s national semifinal at the Rose Bowl:
“I’m not rooting for nobody if we’re not in it.”