MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Texas will play its fifth home game of the season Saturday when it plays host to No. 24 West Virginia, and about all that’s certain is the two teams will kick off at 3:30 p.m. and the game will be televised on Fox Sports 1.
The rest? Good luck with that.
“That’s why I say, ‘What team am I going to get today?’” Texas first-year coach Charlie Strong said.
The Longhorns are 2-2 at home this season. They opened the season with a 38-7 win against North Texas and then lost a week later to BYU, 41-7. They returned home five weeks later and to lost to Baylor 28-7. Two weeks after that, they beat Iowa State 48-45.
Texas (4-5, 3-3 Big 12) has shut out a team and been shut out this season and it happened within conference play. It defeated Kansas 23-0 and four weeks later lost to No. 9 Kansas State 23-0. That was the school’s first shutout loss since 2004, but it was followed with the 34-13 win on the road against the Red Raiders.
The Longhorns have won games by 31, 23, 3 and 23 points and lost by 31, 3, 21, 5 and 23.
“We could have played a lot better than what we have this season,” Strong said. “I haven’t done a great coaching job and we haven’t done a great job playing. We’re going through a stretch here where now we have West Virginia coming in and we haven’t played well at home all season long, but we’ve still got some games left here and we can still play better and we can still get better.”
The Mountaineers (6-3, 4-2), who helped set an attendance record at Darrell K Royal-Memorial Stadium with a crowd of 101,851 in their 2012 win, aren’t easy to solve with the way last week’s loss to No. 6 TCU went. WVU led 13-0 in the first quarter, 27-14 in the third quarter and 30-21 in the fourth quarter and lost 31-30 on a last-second field goal.
The Mountaineers are 3-0 on the road this season, but had a 54-0 win at home against Towson, a 33-14 win at home against Kansas and a 41-27 win at home against then-No. 4 Baylor before the road trips.
“You’ve got to have some confidence in order to play well, and the only way to have confidence is to play well,” WVU coach Dana Holgorsen said.
The team met Sunday night to put the loss behind them and to look ahead to its fourth road game, one against a team in need of two more wins to be bowl-eligible.
“It’s a challenge, but every week is a challenge in the Big 12,” Holgorsen said. “We knew this going into it with what I consider to be the top conference in the country, if not one of the top conferences in the country, where you play everyone and each and every game is going to be a challenge. You can throw the records out the window, you can throw what happened the previous week out the window whether it was a big win or a big loss, a last-second win or a last-second loss, a blowout win or a blowout loss.”
WVU is 2-0 after losses this season. It dropped its season opener against No. 4 Alabama in the Georgia Dome and then shut out Towson. After losing to No. 16 Oklahoma, the Mountaineers had a week off and then beat Kansas.
Both the rebound wins were at home, though.
“You look at them on offense and they have Kevin White and (Mario) Alford, who are two unbelievable receivers, and in the running game they have two backs who’ve rushed for over 500 yards, and their quarterback is doing a great job and doesn’t get them beat and does a great job managing the offense,” Strong said.
White, who was named a Maxwell Award semifinalist Monday for the prize given to college’s best player, had three catches in each of the past two games for a combined 55 yards. Trickett threw two interceptions and lost a fumble on a mistimed snap against TCU and had season-low totals for attempts (26), completions (15), yards (162) and touchdowns (one).
It was a new experience this season for Trickett. He was hit hard and harassed by the Horned Frogs throughout the game. He tweaked the ankle he injured earlier in the season and tried to play with a glove on this throwing hand before shedding after his first interception early in the first half.
Trickett threw one pass and was sacked once in the fourth quarter and had an animated discussion with Holgorsen on the sideline after a three-and-out gave the Horned Frogs the ball for the game-winning score.
“Clint’s doing a great job of taking calls that we’re giving him and then taking the knowledge we gave him through the course of the week as far as looks, and when he gets a specific look doing his absolute best to get the right play,” Holgorsen said. “I saw something a little bit different than he did.
“I can’t explain the difference in what I’m looking at and him being in his shoes when he’s getting hit and knocked around and when he’s dealing with all the different things happening on the field. I think Clint does a great job dealing with the information we give him and putting himself in position to be successful. There’s no such thing as calling perfect plays, I assure you.”
Contact sportswriter Mike Casazza at mikec@dailymailwv.com or 304-319-1142. His blog is at blogs.charlestondailymail.com/wvu. Follow him on Twitter at @mikecasazza.