FT. WORTH, Texas - One of the most important attributes a college football player must possess is the ability to forget – to erase those disappointments that occur when his team loses.

 

Each weekend during the college football season, half of the teams are going to win and the other half are going to lose, meaning the unfortunate half must deal with it, then cast it aside and focus on what’s coming up next - quickly.

 

That’s not indifference or a lack of caring, it’s simply a fact of life, says senior linebacker Jared Barber.

 

“You can’t do anything about it – the game is over with,” he said earlier this week. “You can’t go back and play another play. We lost. What’s the point in dwelling on it? That’s how I look at it.”

 

Yearly goals have a way of changing on a weekly basis, sometimes from the positive to the negative depending upon a team’s circumstances.

 

Keep winning and those goals remain positive; lose a couple of games in a row and those goals have a way of pivoting from the positive to avoiding the negative.

 

Years ago, in 1994, West Virginia began the season playing powerful Nebraska in the Kickoff Classic at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The matchup pitted two of the strongest teams of 1993 in what game promoters hoped would be an appealing prelude to the 1994 season.

 

It wasn’t.

 

Nebraska was the vastly superior football team and it showed. The Mountaineers came out of that game rudderless, without a quarterback and its No. 1 preseason goal off the table.

 

Soon other goals went by the wayside as West Virginia continued to lose games, first to Rutgers and then to Maryland and Virginia Tech.

 

But the team rallied with an outstanding performance at Missouri, discovered its quarterback in sophomore Chad Johnston and went on to win six of its final seven games to salvage its season with an appearance against South Carolina in the Carquest Bowl.

 

How did it happen?

 

The older players kept pushing forward and refused to let the prior week’s disappointments overcome them.

 

This year’s team is already arriving at that point in its season following consecutive losses to Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

 

In both instances, West Virginia was unable to capitalize on opportunities to win in the second half after falling behind early.

 

A strong third quarter out in Norman, Oklahoma, was erased at the beginning of the fourth quarter when the Sooners took control of the game by forcing a couple of key turnovers. Last Saturday, West Virginia overcame a 17-2 halftime deficit to tie the game near the end of regulation.

 

But the Mountaineers were unable to finish the deal once again, this time in overtime.

 

Now, more challenging opponents are on the horizon, beginning with Saturday’s game at second-ranked Baylor and continuing 12 days later with another trip down to the Lone Star State to face third-ranked TCU.

 

Naturally, challenging opponents have a way of refocusing football players, sometimes at a moment’s notice.

 

“After (last Saturday’s game against Oklahoma State) I didn’t even shake anybody’s hand,” said Barber. “I ran straight to the locker room. Coach Holgorsen broke it down and then I talked to the team. But once I left the locker room that was it. It was on to Baylor.”

 

It was a similar deal for sophomore wide receiver Shelton Gibson.

 

“If I think about the last game I’m going to have bad practices and I don’t want to have bad practices because bad practices turn into bad games, so you’ve got to put it to bed,” he said.

 

Gibson recalled an instance in high school when his team failed to do that.

 

“We were 9-0 and we were playing (WVU teammate) Tyler Orlosky’s school in our first playoff game and we lost to them,” said Gibson. “We were thinking about it so much and then we came into the next year saying we weren’t going to lose another game and we lost like our first game.”

 

Saturday presents another opportunity, another challenge and another instance to get better – that’s the approach the Mountaineer players are taking, and, it’s really the only approach they can take.

 

“We’ve got seven games left, and they could possibly be my last seven games so there is no point thinking (about last week’s loss) and looking back on it,” said Barber. “You might as well move on to Baylor and worry about them.”

 

Besides, as Gibson astutely points out, you never know what can happen on a weekly basis.

 

“College football is so crazy,” he said. “The Big 12 is so crazy the way people lose and people win. You’ve just got to stay with it.”

 

Who thought West Virginia was going to upset fourth-ranked Baylor following last year’s early-season losses to Alabama and Oklahoma?

 

Who thought Texas was going to be beat Oklahoma last Saturday?

 

The players involved in those games thought so because they weren’t consumed with what had happened to them in the past.

 

“As soon as the game is over you have your pouts and things like that but when you come back the next day you don’t even think about yesterday, or what people are saying,” said Gibson. “Just go to practice and have a good practice.”

 

“Watch the film, see what you did right, see what you did wrong, fix it, and then come Monday it’s completely out of your head,” added Barber.

 

In it’s place are entirely new thoughts. This week it’s Baylor and after that it’s TCU.

 

So goes the life of a college football player.