MORGANTOWN - Call it the Magic Eight game.
WVU's football team travels to Manhattan, Kansas, and a Mountaineer victory over Kansas State on Saturday would be the eighth of the season.
"Isn't that a sign of progress?" WVU coach Dana Holgorsen asked on Tuesday. "Doing things you haven't done in the last couple of years?"
As I wrote in Tuesday's column, it should be West Virginia's game for the taking. Kansas State is at home and gunning for bowl qualification. It will be senior day at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. Yet across the board the Mountaineers have the personnel advantage.
There are only two goals West Virginia has to reach Saturday: offsetting Kansas State's special teams and slowing down the power run game.
The first goal should be attainable if the Mountaineers stop return man Morgan Burns. ("He has three kickoff returns for touchdowns," said WVU assistant Joe DeForest. "That's scary.")
The second goal, though, will be the key. K-State quarterback Joe Hubener is a runner and not much of a passer. Shut down him and 5-foot-10, 206-pound back Charles Jones and Holgorsen and company will have win No. 8.
Here's the good news for WVU fans: The Mountaineer front has been getting better and better. Yes, West Virginia is just No. 69 nationally against the rush, but check out the sack totals. With but a three-man front, WVU is No. 42 nationally with 26 sacks. Defensive end Noble Nwachukwu is No. 31 individually with 7.5. He has 10 tackles for loss. I mean, who knew?
"Consistently they've gotten more active," WVU defensive line coach Bruce Tall said. "They've utilized their techniques, understanding they can get to the quarterbacks. We're not hearing echoes of everyone saying we can't rush with three. We're not surrendering to that. They keep pounding away."
What's interesting is how Tall and the other WVU defensive coaches have increased that effectiveness.
"It's a combination of focus and technique," Tall said. "We've been utilizing a new tackling drill. We purchased these things we call Shadowman. They're pulled around [in a tire] and you can really cut loose. You're not tackling one of your scout guys. It's a dummy you can tackle, so you can get the sensation of what we want in the games. There clearly is carryover."
There's shadow boxing. And Shadow tackling.
"The one thing you don't want is to beat your guys up," Tall said. "You don't want them hitting big bodies all week. ... Our guys have fun with it. When they miss or do something wrong, everyone gets a giggle out of it."
So much has changed in football, and WVU is adapting.
"Way back when people utilized their heads more - the face right in the fan. That's not the way you do things though," Tall said. "It's utilizing same-shoulder, same-leg [technique]. You still can be very powerful and explosive if you do the right things."
See Kyle Rose. See Christian Brown. See Nwachukwu.
"They all work together, the three of them," Tall said. "I think sometimes Christian Brown gets lost in the conversation. He's gotten better and better each week. ... They work off each other. Last week in the first play of the [Kansas] game, Noble got the tackle, Kyle got the assisted tackle and Christian got the 'two-fer,' where he ate up two blocks so the other guys could be succcessful. That's what I like to highlight in meetings - to show them, hey, all three of you did something to make the play succcessful."
Rose once took down Kansas quarterback Joel Lanning some 14 yards upfield.
"He's doing a really nice job of finishing," Tall said of Rose. "If you look back earlier, we were being disruptive, but we weren't getting [quarterbacks] down. There were a number of sacks we didn't have early on. Now, we're finishing it. It became unacceptable."
Call Nwachukwu the Cleaner.
"He works hard," Tall said. "He's very conscientious. When the strength coaches put a monitor on him to measure how hard he's working, he's off the charts. Sometimes he's so high off the charts, we have to make sure he does plenty of recovery [work]."
Together, the three are proving more and more threatening. In order to post win No. 8, they will have to again be so against K-State's run game. Expect to see a look similar to that of Texas.
"There will be some similar blocking schemes, so there will be carryover in that regard," Tall said. "But [Kansas State is] kind of unique. They have a good scheme and combination of blocking schemes. They understand how to attack defenses. They have a real smart offensive line and know how to adjust to different defenses. They can make adjustments on the move better than most offensive lines."
WVU's defensive line, however, is getting better.
Which is definitely a sign of improvement.