MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — As a born-and-bred West Virginian, Tony Gibson is hardly an anomaly around here in holding one of society's most hazardous, high-stress occupations.
Coal mining?
Oh, sure, that's hard, too.
I'm talking defensive coordinator in the Big 12 Conference.
"Ha!" the big man let out with a big laugh Tuesday at West Virginia University's Milan Puskar Center when I broached the topic. "It isn't easy, I'll tell you that."
No need for that. The Mountaineers' manic results for the 2015 season tell it all: They finished 8-5 in spite of an offense that averaged 34 points and five times topped 40. Their losses included offensive outputs of 24, 26, 38 and 23 points. They gave up 62 to Baylor. In football, not hoops. And for the climactic coup, they scored 43 points and passed for more than 500 yards to beat Arizona State in their bowl game ... by one point!
Honestly, check this out:
And yet, maybe most remarkably, Gibson's defense wasn't at all bad.
In the entire NCAA, it ranked No. 2 in interceptions, No. 5 in turnovers, No. 8 in opponents' three-and-outs and No. 11 in third-down rate. In the Big 12, it ranked No. 1 in rushing defense and interceptions, No. 2 in total defense and scoring defense. And individually, four defensive starters were taken in the NFL Draft: Karl Joseph in the first round, then Daryl Worley, Nick Kwiatkoski and KJ Dillon in the third, fourth and fifth.
I couldn't help but ask Gibson, 43, how he doesn't show a single gray hair:
https://vimeo.com/180766915
Give the man credit. There are thankless jobs, and then there are jobs where it looks to all the world like you're failing even when you're actually doing fine.
But that's life in the Big 12. And that, more than any facet, is how West Virginia's program will be defined for years to come, whether it's under the career-long offensive wizard Dana Holgorsen or any head coach: Score or get outscored.
In 2015, five of the top 14 scoring teams in the nation were from the Big 12, with Baylor No. 1 at 48.1 points per game and all the rest averaging at least 39.5. The Mountaineers and their measly 34-point average ranked sixth in the conference, 35th in the nation. And get this: Out of the 10 starting quarterbacks for those offenses, nine are returning, including Baylor's Seth Russell, Oklahoma's Baker Mayfield, Oklahoma State's Mason Rudolph, Texas Tech's Patrick Mahomes and, of course, Skyler Howard for West Virginia.
West Virginia training camp 2016. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
“We were as good as anybody in the country in being able to big-play people in the pass game, and we’ve got all of those key components back," Holgorsen said. "We’ve got to be a little more consistent just with every-down, routine pass plays. That starts up front with protection and then just the rapport Skyler has with the four or five receivers that were all new last year"
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