wvu@25

here's my silver lining to west virginia's shocking loss at syracuse: instead of dropping down to no. 25, we'd be a top 10 team today.

with the upsets of oklahoma and wisconsin, two teams ahead of us in last week's polls, we'd have moved from no. 11 into no worse than 9 or 10.

maybe it's the fatalist in me, but if we were a top 10 team, some other conference foe -- likely rutgers this week or, worse, pitt in november -- would have exposed the weakness that syracuse exploited.

and that would have been a bubble buster even harder to stomach than this last one.

we're still a top 25 team, albeit by our fingernails. but we're also two losses wiser.

while a lofty mid-season ranking provides some heady ether, being brought down to earth can be a painful, but necessary way of sobering up to focus on the opportunities ahead.

i'm hoping that this really is a blessing in disguise, part of a football program's growing pains to bigger and better things.