Or at least would have accepted the loss.
Then the media hype started trying to attract eyeballs.
The message was “West Virginia is back”.
It’s something that we have been awaiting for over a decade. We have been dying to return to SI covers and national features.
We want to be relevant. We want to be talked about in a positive light.
It’s the WV inferiority complex. We have been put down so often that we have this almost desperate need to be told “you’ve done well”.
So when the hype machine started, I think we all wanted to believe it. And then it grew with all the Pat Macfee love and half the Fox crew picking us to win. And features on Garret Greene.
And I thought for a minute. We won 9 games last year. We have a sold out stadium. We are going to give Penn State one helluva fight. F’yeah, we are back.
Then we walked out on the field and fell flat on our faces. We weren’t back. We are exactly where we have been for the entire Neal Brown era. A mediocre team with a relatively low ceiling.
That is what was crushing about today. It was the almost cruel dangling of the dream. The memories of what we have been. And cold hard reality of how far out of reach that dream actually is at this stage.
Then the media hype started trying to attract eyeballs.
The message was “West Virginia is back”.
It’s something that we have been awaiting for over a decade. We have been dying to return to SI covers and national features.
We want to be relevant. We want to be talked about in a positive light.
It’s the WV inferiority complex. We have been put down so often that we have this almost desperate need to be told “you’ve done well”.
So when the hype machine started, I think we all wanted to believe it. And then it grew with all the Pat Macfee love and half the Fox crew picking us to win. And features on Garret Greene.
And I thought for a minute. We won 9 games last year. We have a sold out stadium. We are going to give Penn State one helluva fight. F’yeah, we are back.
Then we walked out on the field and fell flat on our faces. We weren’t back. We are exactly where we have been for the entire Neal Brown era. A mediocre team with a relatively low ceiling.
That is what was crushing about today. It was the almost cruel dangling of the dream. The memories of what we have been. And cold hard reality of how far out of reach that dream actually is at this stage.
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