MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Three letters described Saturday's game in Lawrence, Kansas - H-O-T. It was very hot out there, the thermometer exceeding 100 degrees on the field, and the oppressive heat unquestionably played a role in the 1,199 yards and 90 points the two teams put up during the afternoon.
 
"Glad to get out of here with a win," were West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen's opening remarks following his team's 56-34 victory. "It looked good at times and looked bad at times, which anybody who was here or watched the game can probably figure out."
 
Sure, West Virginia's defense gave up 564 total yards to a 1-3 Kansas team, and sure the Jayhawks hit some big plays and made the game more interesting than it should have been at the start of the fourth quarter, but the Mountaineers did what they had to do to win a Big 12 road game by 22 points.
 
Ask No. 2-ranked Oklahoma this morning how tough things can be on the road in the Big 12. The Sooners weren't in the clear at winless Baylor until the 59^th minute when they held on for a 49-41 victory over a wounded Bears program that has already lost early-season games to Liberty and Texas-San Antonio.
 
That same Oklahoma defense that stoned Ohio State in Columbus gave up 523 yards and 41 points on the road in Waco. As Fox Sports commentator Petros Papadakis said during the telecast, you earn your style points at home and you survive on the road.
 
Oklahoma survived Waco, just as West Virginia survived Lawrence.
 
It doesn't matter that there were 26,000 fans disguised as seats at Memorial Stadium on Saturday, or that Kansas hasn't won a meaningful football game since George W. Bush was president, no conference wins are to be taken for granted, particularly in the wild and wacky Big 12.
 
Against Kansas, West Virginia started slowly, erupted for 28 points in the second quarter and finished strongly with a 21-point flurry in the fourth quarter.
 
"I'd rather it be the second and fourth instead of the second and third," Holgorsen admitted.
 
In between, Kansas ate clock with a couple of time-consuming drives in the first quarter, and had some more lengthy drives in the third quarter when it outscored West Virginia 14-0.
 
"I didn't like that I had six starters that we can't play Big 12 football with," West Virginia defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said. "Here's the good news. We won today and we played a lot of guys who played a lot of snaps for the first time in a meaningful football game, the bad news is I have six starters out that played minimally. We won, but if we don't get healthy we're going to have some more growing pains."
 
In reality, what we saw on Saturday was to be expected, especially from those who have studied both teams closely.
 
West Virginia was going to score lots of points against a young Jayhawk defense with some glaring weaknesses in their back end, and Kansas was going to score points against a young and inexperienced Mountaineer defense minus some of their key parts.
 
Kansas paid a lot of money to hire offensive coordinator Doug Meacham away from TCU and the guy knows how to scheme up defenses.
 


His decision to stick to the ground with running back Khalil Herbert and utilize tight end Ben Johnson as an extra blocker in the run game was rewarded with a record setting 291-yard rushing performance by Herbert.
 
That was unexpected - and that's something West Virginia must address immediately and continuously in the two weeks leading into its next road game at TCU, which could be in the top 10 following the Horned Frogs' stunning upset victory at No. 6 Oklahoma State yesterday.
 
But wasn't unexpected was the Jayhawk offense making mistakes at key moments, whether it was a young offensive lineman being called for illegal motion near the goal line, or junior college quarterback Peyton Bender being careless with the football.
 
Those things showed up on film in Kansas' losses to Central Michigan and Ohio, and to the credit of Tony Gibson's young defense they took advantage of those costly errors.
 
Mike Daniels Jr.'s 25-yard pick six right before the end of the half was a big play, as was hustling true freshman Lamonte McDougle's strip-sack in the fourth quarter that put West Virginia in position to score a late touchdown to put the game on ice (or perhaps Icy Hot if you will).
 
"There were a lot of twos out there but I'm proud of the way they battled," Gibson noted. "They made a lot of mistakes and missed a lot of tackles but we're not going to be able to play good defense until we get these guys some more snaps. That's a frustrating thing to try and deal with."
 
"We had a lot of main players out, you saw them all along the sidelines," Holgorsen added. "That affects a lot of different things. I'm sitting there scribbling all kinds of names out there on special teams."
 
There were clearly imperfections in all three phases of play on Saturday, just as there will be imperfections in all three phases in every game remaining this year. There will be imperfections during today's NFL games, too.
 
What the successful teams do is manage those imperfections, work to improve them, and continue to get better.
 
And that's what West Virginia is going to try and do starting this afternoon.