wvu@5-2

my colleague, mike, posted a prescient preview story before friday's west virginia game against syracuse, in which he noted the similarities coming in this year and last.

unfortunately, we got the same result, an upset loss -- and, more than that, it was an old-fashioned, behind the woodshed ass-whipping.

this appeared as comment in his blog:

as per last year vs. this year: i don’t sense the ineptitude, impotence or indecisive flailing the team effused after losing in 2010.

we have an identity, and it’s a good one; we just happened to run into a buzz saw.

syracuse’s game plan was simple, but they executed to perfection. they were the team (coach doug) marrone asked them to be: smart, patient and, most importantly, physical.

as long as our defense couldn’t stop them, their offense dinked and dunked its way up and down the field and protected the ball.

the orange defense was relentless and constant as a piledriver. we never maintained a steady rhythm.

as (blog commenter) lcj said, we played “fine,” but we needed to be better than “good” against a team that wasn’t making mistakes.

my understanding of the 3-3-5 defense — and spread offenses, for that matter — is that they made up for the deficiencies from not being able to recruit elite athletes at positions designed for a pro-style offense or conventional defense.

we’ve needed gimmicks because we’re not alabama or michigan.

while my fondest dreams were that everything would gel this year and we’d pull off the upsets and crush the rest, i’m having to face the facts that “the experts” pointed out before the season began: we’re inexperienced in the places that count — o-line and defense.

we”re learning — and we should be the better for it, if not this year, then next.

while we no longer control our own destiny, that conference title is still up for grabs. i can only hope we take something moving forward from these lessons.

that about sums it up for me.