An 8-4 record would have made everything OK.
A WVU victory last Saturday against an outmanned Kansas State team would have done the trick. All coach Dana Holgorsen had to do was give the ball to Wendell Smallwood on fourth-and-1. It was as obvious a call as that once facing Pete Carroll in the Super Bowl. Instead of Marshawn Lynch, though, Holgorsen had Wendell Smallwood.
Then the Mountaineer coach, like Carroll, tried to be too clever. Gimpy QB Skyler Howard ran the ball. He lost 3 yards.
WVU lost the game. And then the Mountaineer Nation lost its collective mind.
"I wish we would have called something different," Holgorsen said.
It would have made life a lot easier for him, WVU athletic director Shane Lyons and school president E. Gordon Gee.
Now, though, there's a decision to be made: fire Holgorsen or retain the coach.
As of Monday evening, the decision had not been made. All of the principals - Gee, Lyons and Holgorsen - were in New York. The WVU basketball team is playing a high-profile game tonight at Madison Square Garden against Virginia. There are Big 12 meetings going on. There are College Football Hall of Fame ceremonies going on. Lyons is a speaker at a sports business clinic.
When reached Monday, Lyons said he had no comment on Holgorsen's status. Reliable sources, however, have said the athletic director and coach have talked about the situation a couple times. Those discussions will continue in the coming days.
It's a sticky situation. As mentioned, vocal Mountaineer fans have strongly suggested via social media it's time for Holgorsen to go. After waiting a day for them to calm down, I posted an unscientific Twitter poll asking if the coach should now be on the hot seat. A whopping 79 percent said yes. There was a barrage of responses that followed the posting unfavorable to Holgorsen.
Welcome to the world of athletic directorship, Shane Lyons.
There are, of course, many angles to consider. The first is whether Mountaineer fans will buy season tickets next season. Would a victory over Arizona State in the upcoming Cactus Bowl be enough salve?
Maybe not this time. Holgorsen now has a 35-28 record, which translates into 55.5 percent. His teams have played in the Orange, Pinstripe, Liberty and, now, Cactus bowls. Since Jim Carlen coached in Morgantown from 1966-69, only Frank Cignetti (38.6) has a worse winning percentage than Holgorsen.
Bobby Bowden was run out of Morgantown with a 61.8 winning percentage over six seasons. Bill Stewart was out after three seasons and winning 70 percent of his games.
Certainly, Holgorsen's shining moment was in 2011 when the Mountaineers routed Clemson in the Orange Bowl. Since that 10-3 season, though, WVU has gone 7-6 after a 5-0 start in 2012; an ugly 4-8 in 2013; a somewhat hopeful 7-6 in 2014; and the 7-5 2015 regular season.
While there have been nice wins, like those over No. 13 Oklahoma State in 2013 and over No. 4 Baylor last season, there have also been stinkers. The most recent Kansas State game ranks up there because West Virginia had so much more talent. Yet go back to last season's Wildcats win over the Mountaineers in Morgantown. "Yep, didn't get the job done," Holgorsen said afterward. "I have to do something different. I have to do something better."
It's a quote that rings familiar. In 2013, WVU won one game after September and lost at Kansas, which had lost 27 straight Big 12 games. The Mountaineers blew a 24-point lead and lost in three overtimes to Iowa State before a tiny Puskar Stadium crowd.
The hunch is Holgorsen would be gone now had Oliver Luck stayed around as AD. The reason is the many times Luck had to come out in support of the coach.
"I strongly believe in our coaching staff," Luck once said.
What followed in 2014 was, "What I certainly want to see is improvement in our competitiveness, our ability to move the ball, our ability to stop the ball, all aspects of the game."
Perhaps thankfully for Holgorsen it's Lyons now sitting in the AD chair. The two worked at Texas Tech at the same time. Maybe Lyons isn't as tired of covering Holgorsen's behind. Also, there are the financial considerations. If Holgorsen isn't out today, he gets a $75,000 retention bonus. A much larger consideration, though, is the buyout. If Holgorsen and his staff are shown the door, it would cost WVU's athletic department $8.725 million. That would drop after the first of the year. Perhaps Lyons is doing a slow roll toward then.
There are the recruiting considerations. The national signing date is Feb. 5. The Mountaineers' 2016 recruiting class is currently ranked No. 30 by Scout and No. 35 overall and No. 5 within the Big 12 by 247Sports. Those numbers are about the norm for Holgorsen's staff.
Mostly, however, what Lyons needs to consider is WVU's place in the world of major college sports. The Mountaineers' respectable name in football and basketball landed the school in the Big 12. Had it not been for those reputations and Luck's ties to Texas, West Virginia would be in the American Athletic Conference today.
My point is WVU cannot take its place for granted. Yes, the school is safe today in the Big 12. But positioned as an outpost, West Virginia needs to remain strong in its major sports. Further conference realignment might be as close as a decade down the road.
WVU doesn't offer a lot of eyeballs for TV viewing. It does, however, offer good sports programs. And keeping football strong is the reason Luck moved to Holgorsen from Stewart in the first place, remember?
"I didn't believe we had an opportunity to win a national championship with the direction of [Stewart's] program," Luck said at the time. "At the end of the day, results matter. And we weren't getting results. I want our Mountaineer program - and expect us - to compete at the highest levels."
Those were the expectations for Stewart. We'll see if they're the same today for Holgorsen.