Let's Spin the Narrative for a Second

It's not all doom and gloom for the Mountaineers...yet.

As difficult as it may be for a lot of fans to get over West Virginia's loss to Houston, I'll do my best in trying to help you feel a little better about where the Mountaineers are.

I'll be the first to admit, I was dead wrong about the first half of the season. I never thought that 4-2 would be possible at the midway point. I assumed they would drop at least one or perhaps both games against Texas Tech and TCU in addition to the season opener at Penn State. Winning each of those games altered the expectations from both myself and a lot of people around college football.

The remaining schedule is still fairly manageable. Yes, Oklahoma State is playing better. Yes, the Bounce House (UCF) is a difficult venue to play in, as well as Oklahoma, but these are winnable games. Okay, maybe not Oklahoma but hey, you never know, right?

If West Virginia wins each of its three remaining home games (Oklahoma State, BYU, Cincinnati), that gets them to seven wins and I think a lot of folks would consider that a successful season. Is it good enough though? No. Not with how the season began. Getting an eighth or possibly ninth win is what would make Mountaineer fans feel good about the program moving forward and reaching that mark is possible. 

Prior to the Houston game, I still had concerns about getting to eight or nine because of how one-dimensional the offense was. I do understand that the Cougars have one of the league's worst defenses but still, it was an opportunity for Garrett Greene to piece together a strong outing and he did exactly that by throwing for 391 yards and two touchdowns.

He made winning plays all night long, especially when they needed it most. I'm not here to talk about the celebration penalty. Remember, we're keeping it positive in here today. The kid played his tail off and if it weren't for him, West Virginia wouldn't have even had a chance to win the game. He helped erase a two-score deficit in under seven minutes. 

The downfield passing game finally came to life with big chunk plays to EJ Horton, Preston Fox, Devin Carter, and Kole Taylor. Connecting on passes beyond 15 yards forces the defense to lighten the box, meaning CJ Donaldson has a little more wiggle room to work with. 

We had seen West Virginia win games ugly by running the ball and playing sound defense. I often wondered what would happen if the defense didn't bring their 'A' game. Would it be a blowout because WVU's offense couldn't keep pace? We got our answer. This unit is more than capable of putting points on the board and I don't think it's a one-off either. 

As I've mentioned approximately 1.8 million times over the past couple of weeks, Greene had played very little football this season entering the TCU game. Penn State he, played the full game. Duquesne, he played a half. Pitt, he saw five snaps before leaving with the ankle injury. He missed the Texas Tech game and then didn't know he would be starting at TCU until two days prior. 

The bye week allowed him to not only get fully healthy but actually get reps under his belt and fine-tune his game. He made remarkable progress throwing the football and it showed on Thursday. A perfect example of it is the interception, believe it or not. He stuck that ball in the only spot he could throw it to Jaylen Anderson on that route along the sideline and it should have gone for six. Instead, Anderson failed to haul it in, resulting in an interception.

Help is coming for this team too. 

Wyatt Milum will have another week for his eye to heal after getting poked by a TCU defender a couple of weeks ago. Having your All-American left tackle back in the fold will help. And then defensively, Aubrey Burks will soon make his way back after suffering a scary injury at TCU. He was questionable for Thursday night's game, so there could be a chance he's ready to go against Oklahoma State.

The Mountaineers still control their own destiny. They have everything they want still in front of them. And maybe that sour taste of the loss to Houston fuels this group to a strong finish.

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