MORGANTOWN - West Virginia might be the best team in the conference and might even get past curiously long odds and find itself with a spot in the College Football Playoff at the end of an unpredictable season. We'll know a good bit more Saturday night when the Big 12's first game of the year is done.
No. 8 Oklahoma visits the 10th-ranked Mountaineers for the 8 p.m. ABC game at Mountaineer Field. WVU cannot win the Big 12 without beating the Sooners for the first time as a member of the Big 12.
A win followed by wins against Iowa State and Baylor and partnered with an Oklahoma win against Oklahoma State on Dec. 3 puts the crown atop Mountaineer coach Dana Holgorsen's head.
The way the College Football Playoff committee has arranged its rankings - and the potential television ratings - suggests the Mountaineers don't have a chance to reach the top four, but WVU wasn't supposed to rebound from a loss and compete for the national title in 2007, which was the last time the school hosted a game as meaningful as this one.
So we don't yet know many of the most important things about the Mountaineers, but we know this one fact, which probably matters most. This is the right team for the right time.
College football is obsessed with offense. Points per game is the key statistic, and the CFP committee actually reasoned that Oklahoma, which is 0-2 against ranked teams, deserves a spot at No. 9 because it has a "tremendous offense." The part about a seven-game winning streak came later.
Footballs in the air, athletes on the go and points on the scoreboard fill seats and wear out remote controls. This is what the very best coaches understand, and what we see is many college players are like college fans - they're front-runners. They love it when their team is in a groove, racing up and down the field and crafting highlights as they create distance between themselves and the opponent.
But what we also see is the same people who want it to be easy don't fare very well when it's hard. The exception? Well, there's Alabama, which has made everything look easy this season. But what about the Mountaineers?
Oh, they're capable of five-touchdown games and cozy winning margins. Honestly, they are. But it's within them to realize that might not happen in that particular game and a backup plan is available and reliable enough to win.
They've won when they've had it easy and they've won when they've had the roof falling in above them and the ground caving in beneath their feet. They're comfortable when it's fun, but they have fun when they or the opponent make things difficult.
"I think great teams don't always win by large margin of victories," running backs coach JaJuan Seider said. "Great teams win when they've been dealt adverse hands."
Think that culture exists out at Oregon? Think the Ducks might look for a little more balance, a little more fortitude when they get around to hiring their next coach? Ask the same questions about Texas Tech. Might the Red Raiders like to see Kliff Kingsbury emulate his mentor, Holgorsen, in a few more ways than just the plays they call?
"It's human nature to want it to be easy, but that's not reality in college football," Holgorsen said. "Everything's hard. Everything about my job is hard, everything about our assistant coaches' jobs is hard, because it's so competitive. Every week you're looking at a group that's doing the same stuff with a lot of the same players, so it's hard.
"If you want to be successful, you have to be mentally tough, and you have to put the last one behind you and go out and attack and practice on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and get prepared to go play your best on Saturday. There's nothing easy about that. If it was easy, everyone would do it."
WVU opened the season with a 26-11 win against Missouri when the quarterback was injured, his two backups both committed a turnover and 19 players played their first game. The second game featured a 14-14 halftime tie against the Football Championship Subdivision's Youngstown State. The third game saw the offense build a 35-19 lead and win when the defense, which was in peril, picked off a pass to protect a 35-32 lead and end the game.
Little has been easy in the Big 12. The Mountaineers had never beaten Kansas State and trailed 13-0 in their meeting this season, but they persevered and won 17-16 when the Wildcats missed a late field goal. The defense wobbled early on in the first road trip to Texas Tech, but the defense settled and combined with the offense to make that a cinch.
WVU had a good time in the first half at home against TCU and then lost at Oklahoma State, but three turnovers and the 17 points the Cowboys scored off those turnovers were why WVU lost. Kansas is supposed to be simple in the Big 12, and the Mountaineers managed that, but everything was a task last week at Texas.
The Mountaineers' top two running backs were basically unavailable and replaced by one true freshman. A starting defensive end was out and replaced by two freshmen. The quarterback threw three interceptions in one quarter. The defense shut down the Longhorns in the second half but had to do it in spite of the offense all the way to the end, when WVU defended the final play with 10 players on the field.
"When we took the field for the last drive, I said, 'Guys, this is what it's all about. I wouldn't want to be in any other situation right now,' " defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said. "I never one time ever thought they were going to score a touchdown. Not one time during that drive. Not when we went out there. The situation didn't affect us."
Not negatively, that is. In the past, it was a different story. WVU has some players who were on the 2012 team that started 5-0 and finished 7-6. Many of the current seniors were 4-8 as freshmen a year later. In 2014, the Mountaineers finished 7-6, but they were tied 24-24 with Oklahoma and lost 45-33. They gave up a drive and a field goal as time expired in a 31-30 loss to TCU.
That ended a four-game winning streak that had pushed WVU into the Top 25 for the first time in two years. The heartbreak cost the Mountaineers a week later in a 33-16 loss at Texas, and they trailed 20-3 at home the following week in a loss to Kansas State. A defensive touchdown in the bowl game put WVU up 17-7 against Texas A&M, but the Aggies won 45-37.
"In past years, we made it really hard on ourselves at times, and we weren't able to recover," senior center Tyler Orlosky said. "That's why we had the records we did in the past. But that's why this team is different. If we're struggling on offense or defense, the other side of the ball is going to pick it up."
Contact Mike Casazza at 304-319-1142 or mikec@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mikecasazza and read his blog at http://blogs.wvgazettemail.com/wvu/.