Tonight’s game between WVU and Oklahoma is about many things—a trip to the Big 12 championship game, a first-ever win over the Sooners since joining the league, Will Grier’s Heisman campaign, just to name a few.
It also just happens to be the biggest game for head coach Dana Holgorsen since arriving in Morgantown in 2011 with the peculiar (and ill-fated) coach-in-waiting job title. Since then, Holgorsen and West Virginia have been an odd fit. 
We here in West Virginia can be parochial and defensive, alert to slights and cautious of outsiders. It’s important for Mountaineer Nation to feel like a coach wants to be here, that they get the deep sense of pride fans have in their team and their state.
Early on, Holgorsen either didn’t grasp that concept or didn’t care. He cared about coaching and calling plays, but not about wearing Mountaineer pride on his sleeve. On that front, he was no Bill Stewart. Offensive coordinator Jake Spavital told ESPN, “He doesn’t like being the CEO all the time.”
National stories about Holgorsen depict him as an offensive savant. Washington State coach Mike Leach, who coached with Holgorsen at Texas Tech, told ESPN, “However smart you think he is, he’s smarter than that.”
Perhaps Mountaineer fans expected too much of him. We could just settle for his offensive prowess while trying to embrace his quirkiness as charming rather than irritating—the risk taking, the Red Bull, the hair, the incessant throat clearing during press conferences. Graham Harrell, who quarterbacked at Texas Tech while Holgorsen coached there, told ESPN that pleasing others is not Holgorsen’s strength.
“Maybe his greatest trait is he honestly does not care what anybody thinks about him,” Harrell said. “Some people don’t care for him, but he honestly doesn’t care. And because of that, he’ll try anything. If it doesn’t work, what, fans are going to be pissed? He doesn’t care.”
Maybe it’s better that way. Do fans want a warm and fuzzy loser or an aloof and distant winner?
And that brings us back to tonight’s game. Holgorsen has won 61 percent of his games in eight seasons, but has not yet won a conference title and has a 10-19 record against ranked opponents. Holgorsen needs a defining victory, a win that demonstrates that he can utilize the once-in-a-generation talents of a quarterback to knock off a favored national power.
Funny thing about quirkiness and coaching; when you win, idiosyncrasies are traits of a genius, but when you lose, well, then they are just peculiar flaws that can prevent someone with obvious football acumen from reaching their potential.
MetroNews sports contributor Brad Howe’s mantra for Holgorsen and the Mountaineers all season has been, “If not now, when?” This is a defining season for Holgorsen and no game will have meant more to how he is perceived by Mountaineer Nation than the one tonight in Morgantown.