clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

The Texas Pregamer: West Virginia

By Kyle Carpenter

WVU-14-Mast

(Typo intentional*, so you don't think us perfect)


Texas Tech’s Air Raid? More like the Air...Suede, amirite? Suede, like Kliff, is not a practical material for sporting events. After mostly containing Baylor and turning Briles’ offense into the Air...Quaid (I have a longstanding theory that Dennis Quaid cannot be in a terrible film. It may not be great, but it will be passable), Texas sets it sights on the drunkest of the Hal Mumme/Mike Leach offensive prodigies.

And ol’ Holgo has a pretty good one, all things considered. The three teams they’ve lost to? A combined ranking of 13; a Vin Baker’s Dozen at the time the game was played! FWIW, they could’ve also accomplished that by losing to each of the thirteen #1 ranked teams in the SEC (I just assume they are ranked 1A, 1B, 1C, etc...minus Vanderbilt).

And against one of the hottest teams in the country? Well they just lost by one point to TCU. The same TCU team, you’ll remember, that hung 82 on Tech the week before.

This team can be very good. Clint Trickett, besides being a chauvinistic form of Jonathan Moxon incarnate, is also the skinniest D-1 QB, which is something. Holgorsen has had a few years to stake out all of Morgantown’s best nightlife and seems to have gotten really settled in.

Tricky Trickett

Their defense started as an old chunk of coal...but it just might be a diamond some day. (Allowed 33 points and 455 yards per game in 2013. This year, 25.7 and 389).

But The Pregamer has a well-established history of not dealing in facts. Let’s deal with feels.

*That typo in the mast? Yea that's called a Prattfall, but some may just call it playin' a bit of possum, which is EXACTLY what it FEELS like this Texas Team has been doing for the first 75% of the season. Genius move, Strong.

Discounting for the awful, inconsistent Tech defense and mini-Vinny, Texas FEELS like it is about to go on an improbable, unstoppable winning streak to make a bowl.

This game FEELS like an upset waiting to happen and Swoopes FEELS like he’s one ghost-fumble away from a decent game.

Dana Holgersen FEELS like there a guy with at least 4 or 5 sexual misconduct cases floating out there (don’t THINK about the fact that he looks like a skulleted version of lovable turncoat abolitionist Coach Yost from Remeber the Titans).

West Virginia FEELS like it should be wayyy higher on the Meth scale.

I’ll just tell you, this FEELS like the ending of Grand Theft Auto V (wVu?). And I’m talking about the option where you, as the young, African American male thrust into a life you weren’t necessarily ready for, rise to the challenge and eventually burn (option A) the wily drug addict Dana...Trevor.

GTAWVU - JPG

The ***GTAV SPOILERS*** final word in the game from our young protagonist? "Hey, it’s certainly been an education."

Let this be your education Swoopes. Take him out. No mercy.

Hook ‘Em

trivia new

Better Know a Roster

They are from West Virginia. It was so easy it almost felt bad...almost.

  • Jewone Snow (LB, r-Sr.) and Hodari Christian (LB, r-Fr.) - Jewone Snow stars in the new blockbuster BET knockoff of Game of Thrones. With his sidekick Hodari who can only say the word…"swag."
  • Grant Lingafelter (OL, r-Fr.) - Lingafelter? I barely know ‘er! But seriously. He’s from "Chagrin Falls" which sounds like the lost Emily Bronte novel.
  • Dayron Wilson (S, r-Jr.) - #HandsUpDontPass
  • Houstin Syvertson (LB/FB, r-Fr.) - I’d say you can blame his misspelled name on the West Virginia educational system, but he made the Big 12 Honor Roll last year. #Overcome
  • Daejuan Funderburk (S, Fr.) - Is surely the coolest name we’ll play all year. I always loved (the inexplicably unrelated) Lawrence F. from those awesome late 90s/early 2000s Kings teams. Daejuan just has that little extra something for a first name.
  • Thane Hoffman (RB, Fr.) - Someone has been playing some Skyrim. Thane of Riften, amirite? Or is it Mass Effect and Thane Krios that gets the masses going?
  • Nick Kwiatkoski (LB, r-Jr.) - How they taunt in Midwestern bars: "Oh look at Nicky over here. He’s got one of those "jawbs," so he can only take 11 Yuenglings to the dome. Why dontcha just quit there, ‘quit-a-kowski?’ Quit ya woman drinkin,"
  • Storm McPherson (QB, r-Fr.) - There’s like 6 players on this team from a place called Hurricane, W.Va, but Storm is from...Princeton, W.Va. Which I’m sure, with it’s 7th grade reading level, is the Ivy of West Virginia.
  • Edward Muldrow (LB, r-Jr.) - "Gold night and goldluck."
  • Wendell Smallwood (RB, So.) - [presented with no comment]
  • Chris Smelley (TE/FB, r-Jr.) and Curtis Smelley (LB, r-Jr.) - imagine being known as the "Smelly guys" on a team from West Virginia.
  • Chai Smith (WR, r-So.) - His parents named him after the Indian tea and now he is studying engineering. I know someone whose parents named her Charity and she’s probably a stripper. It’s important, you guys.
  • Wes Tonkery (LB, r-Sr.) - From Shinnston, W.Va, due south of Kneesburg and just north of Anklesville. But seriously what is this guy doing not opening up West Virginia’s answer to Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar (and Grill).
  • Stone Underwood (OL, r-Jr.) - I think this was part of Andy Dufresne’s instructions to Red, should he ever get out of Shawshank.
  • Daryl Worley (CB, So.) - Holgo offered him a roster spot on the premise that "he damn well hasn’t forgotten. God Bless 'Merica. And no one else."


Foreign-ish Correspondence


02.jpg

By Zak Kinnaird, Longhorn and Mountaineer extraordinaire. Find some of the best sports satirical news at The Salutatorian.

National Party School Showdown

#1 Party School National Championships:

West Virginia

2007, 2012, 2013

Texas

2010

Match up this week: #4 WVU vs. Unranked Texas (previously #15 in 2013)


From the Moonshine Hut

I’m a Longhorn and I’m a Mountaineer, and I’ve been low before. I was there in 2008 when Crabt*** ruined my life. I was there in 2010 at the Rose Bowl rooting for Texas when they pulled Colt. But this year as a Mountaineer it’s been a death by a thousand knives. WVU is consistently almost great -- "the best 6-3 team in the country" right now, and it ruffles my Tricketts.

To give you fine readers an idea of where Mountaineer Nation is right now, it’s low. The glorious light of our victory couch fires were doused yet again last week in a last second loss to WVU turnovers and play calling TCU. Yet, the couch fire in our hearts lives on, especially for the Horns. All I needed was a trip down memory lane.

Let’s take a look at the past two years, so you know what to expect aside from a visit by the Red Bull chugging, air-raid party train that is Wild-Hair Holgersen and the WVU Mountaineers.

2012: WVU 48 – TEXAS 45

2013: WVU 40 - TEXAS 47 (OT)

I was at both these games and I can tell you that both were electric. Far from the Texas-Country-Club-clapping atmosphere of old, I can confirm that both teams get up for this game. Our inaugural meeting was the launch of Kenny Vacaros’ @GetLoudDKR campaign, which I’m proud to say Texas responded to with gusto. The volleys of "TEXAS FIGHT" seemed endless, it was a beautiful and confusing time for me. I expect nothing less this week.


RIOT XANGA [heart emoji] [heart emoji]


GAME PREDICTION

I imagine this game as a mountain man recovering from his moonshine hangover wildly swinging at a cow preoccupied with its morning, mirror facing, affirmation - "it gets better." Although it’s going to be a shootout, Mounties got the Longhorns by the shorthairs. 42-31.

Parting Gift

Beautiful rendition of Country Roads after our First BIG 12 game. We’re excited to be here, y’all.

games

Bingo!

WVU shoddy Bingo

forecast nw

Predictions:

Kyle Carpenter: I was in Atlanta for the Chick-fil-A Kickoff. On a tour of the CNN Headquarters, six stories above a sea of Crimson and "Roll Tide" and "Rammer Jammer" only dotted with yellow or navy flecks, I saw something shocking. One brave, unimpressive, older man, with a replica coonskin cap draped delicately over a prized few tufts of grayish hair, earned the respect of thousands. He silenced the otherwise insufferable hoard of Bear Bryant’s boys, who watched, mouths agape, as he belted the most hauntingly beautiful rendition of "Country Roads" any of us had ever heard.


For that guy, let’s make it painless and quick. Texas always in control after a quick score, cruises to a 28-10 victory.

Shoes for Hillbillies

For the low cost of one pair of shoes, you could potentially make one Appalachian hillbilly a superstar.

(Could also be applicable to poor WVU legend/used car salesman Kevin Pittsnogle)

Parting Shot:

West Virginia's Student Government has a very serious, very real video about a social issue that has been plaguing their school.


More From Barking Carnival