MORGANTOWN - Nick Kwiatkoski was a redshirt freshman in 2012 and he played in the 49-14 loss at Texas Tech, the one that began with West Virginia ranked No. 5 with a 5-0 record and ended with the rowdiest Red Raiders fans rushing the field.
Kwiatkoski hated that. But he understood.
"We were a good team and we'd been playing pretty well, so that was a big win for them," he said.
A year later, he was again on the road and again weaving through fanatics on the field after another unexpected loss. This time, though, the Mountaineers went to Kansas unranked with a 4-6 record. The Jayhawks won and snapped a 27-game Big 12 losing streak.
Kwiatkoski hated that, too, and he didn't quite understand it.
"That was something that caught me off guard," he said. "Neither one of us was having a good season, but I had a feeling it might happen. We were sitting right in front of their student section, and they were talking about it."
The loss is indisputably the lowest point of coach Dana Holgorsen's first 60 games in charge of the Mountaineers, and he and the veterans who experienced that pushed it to the back of the crawlspaces of their minds. It was retrieved and dusted off this week as WVU (5-4, 2-4 Big 12) looks for bowl eligibility and a happier ending against the Jayhawks (0-10, 0-7) Saturday in a noon Root Sports game at Memorial Stadium.
The Mountaineers would like to keep the goal posts rooted in the turf and not paraded around town. They'd like the Gatorade to stay in the coolers and not poured atop the head coach. They'd like to enjoy a third straight win and the first one on the road this season.
"Our motivation right now is to get to a bowl game, and Kansas is the next team in our way," senior nose guard Kyle Rose said. "Does it help a little bit? I would say some guys know, 'Hey, we got beat by them two years ago. Let's not let that happen again,' but I wouldn't say our main focus is, 'Let's go get revenge.'
"Kansas is the next team up. They're in front of us to get to a bowl. We're going there to win a football game and to leave as fast as possible."
The Jayhawks have won just one Big 12 game since beating WVU in 2013. That was last season against Iowa State, which already beat Kansas 38-13 this season. If it doesn't happen for the winless, hapless home team Saturday, it could only happen next week against Kansas State, which has won the Sunflower Showdown the last six years.
"We don't want to be the team that they hang their season on," Rose said.
No, they know that feeling, but the Mountaineers who witnessed the celebration are careful how they pack the baggage they'll take with them. It was two seasons ago. Kansas has a new coach - and David Beaty will be the third Kansas coach WVU has seen in three years - and only a handful of players who were on the field in 2013.
That was WVU's last time playing for the first time in a Big12 stadium. This is the fourth trip through the league. The Mountaineers have a new defensive coordinator, a new focus on offense and just enough players who were in uniform on Nov. 16, 2013.
Still, those who were there have memories. Kwiatkoski remembers the students hatching their plan. Defensive coordinator Tony Gibson loathed "the whole game" but cringes when he remembers running back James Sims coasting for a 68-yard touchdown with 28 seconds left in the first half. Linebacker Jared Barber's season ended the game before in overtime against Texas, so he watched from his couch and grasped the significance.
"I was more upset the seniors weren't able to go to a bowl game," Barber said. "That was the biggest thing I thought about."
But before you allow yourself to be convinced the Mountaineers are over that, understand they are not. Some can manage the meaning better than others, but there are some who brandish it more than others, too. They recall it differently, but their experience that day was the same.
"It was terrible," senior cornerback Terrell Chestnut said. "That's what it was. Terrible. The whole thing. Everything was terrible. Anytime an opposing team storms the field against you, it's never a good feeling. It humbled us."
That feeling is more familiar than the Mountaineers would like. A season ago, the Mountaineers lost to TCU on a field goal as time expired and then played uninspired a week later in a loss to Texas.
"That's the game that really derailed our season," Chestnut said. "We were sure they wanted to come in and do the same thing to us."
So the motivated Mountaineers and their healthy memories beat the Longhorns last week, and Chestnut said it was his idea to pick up Holgorsen and crowd-surf him around the locker room - because that's what happened to Texas coach Charlie Strong the year before.
"No disrespect to him, but I got tired of seeing Charlie Strong get crowd-surfed by his team in the locker room after playing us," Chestnut said. "I think it was only fitting we did that when we beat them."