Ye olde (rare) Saturday notebook:
n If you closely examine statistics, one thing jumps out about this West Virginia football defense, which is meeting the nation's top passing attack Saturday in Texas Tech.
In sum, it's an odd bunch.
Against the run, the Mountaineers are No. 93 nationally, allowing 191.3 ground yards per game. Yet in scoring defense, WVU is No. 27, allowing an average of but 20 points. In total defense, the Mountaineers are No. 77 and in pass defense they are No. 64. Yet in pass efficiency defense they are No. 8 nationally (100.37).
"Pass efficiency is what matters," said West Virginia defensive coordinator Tony Gibson. "People are going to get yards. The days of holding teams down to 300 total yards is now unheard of.
"We've hit it once this year against K-State when they got 286. It's just football right now. Everybody talks about great defenses, but I want to see whom they're playing. I want to see what style of offense they're playing against."
He paused, but ever so slightly.
"It's difficult to stop people. Scoring, pass efficiency and third-down [defense] are what we measure. We haven't been good on third downs, which is concerning. Turnovers are coming - but not like we like to see them. Yet three-and-outs ... you have to try and limit possessions. You give a team 100 snaps and guess what? You're going to give up points. You're going to give up yards."
Especially against these Red Raiders. In turnovers gained, WVU is tied nationally at No. 81 with seven. In third-down conversion defense, it is No. 111.
"We have to do a good job as a team," Gibson said. "That's special teams. That's offense. That's us on defense helping ourselves. That's how you beat these kinds of teams. If you go out and try to outscore these kinds of teams, well, good luck. It's going to be a basketball game on turf."
n While on the subject of football stats, it's tough to beat those of WVU's quarterback opponent, Tech's Pat Mahomes. He's No. 1 nationally in passing yards, total yards and passing yards per game. He's No. 2 in completion percentage (72.8). He's No. 4 in pass efficiency.
"He's a really good player," Gibson said. "He understands the offense. He understands how to get rid of the ball. He puts it in the right place at the right time and lets his receivers work for him. When he wants to go over the top he can do that as well. Plus, he's so big that guys fall off him and he keeps plays alive."
Mahomes is 6-foot-3, 230 pounds.
n While on the subject of big men, it was interesting checking out 6-8, 250-pound Mountaineer basketball forward Sagaba Konate on Thursday in Wheeling during the Gold and Blue Debut. WVU hoops coach Bob Huggins had said previously that although Konate wasn't rated a top-100 recruit, "Wait until you see some of the things he can do."
Well, in the WesBanco Arena, Konate was impressive, although not overpowering. There was the baby dunk off a feed from Brandon Watkins. There was a nice escape from the corner to find Chase Harler. There was the fierce dunk at game's end. There also were some ball-handling security problems.
He finished with eight points on 4-of-6 shooting, two rebounds and four fouls.
"One of the great things about Sags is he doesn't know a whole lot because he didn't really start playing until he got over here [to Kennedy Catholic in Hermitage, Pennsylvania, from Bamako, Mali]," Huggins said. "He had good coaching in high school, so you don't have to break a lot of bad habits. We just have to create good ones.
"I think the bad habit he had is, because he was so much better than anybody else, he didn't have to do things the right way. Day by day, he's finding out he has to do things the right way - and he loves to do things the right way. That's the most important thing: He's extremely, extremely coachable.
"He's got great strength; he's got a good body; he's got really good bounce. The block he made on Elijah [Macon], we haven't had anybody that could do that since Wellington Smith."
"I think I'm doing pretty good," Konate said. "I have to listen to the coaches and work hard every day. I need to improve on my rebounding and blockouts. I need to protect the goal, the basket."
"He's aggressive, which is good," Huggins said. "We just have to make sure it's at the right times and he's doing the right things. You don't want to goaltend balls that aren't going in, obviously. Those kind of things. But that's a good problem to have."
n And finally, a few follow-up notes from WVU's intra-squad hoops scrimmage.
First, Watkins took a hard fall with 11:26 in the first half that absolutely quieted the arena. Thankfully, he got up and walked off seemingly in fine shape.
Next, Nate Adrian, the night's scoring leader with 19 points, now looks like a beast. When I asked him how much he now weighs, the 6-9 Morgantown native smiled and simply said, "Enough." (He's listed at 235 pounds.)
And then there was a nice deadpan response from Huggins, who sat at midcourt while assistant Ron Everhart coached the Blue and Erik Martin coached the Gold. I tweaked Huggins for not working.
"I was working," he said, before cracking a smile. "I was working the officials."
Have a great weekend.
Contact Mitch Vingle at 304-348-4827 or mitchvingle@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @MitchVingle.