MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Dana Holgorsen hopes to end a clear pattern that has emerged in West Virginia's brief five-game series with Baylor - win by close margins at home and get blown out on the road.
 
In 2012, when West Virginia first joined the Big 12, the Mountaineers outlasted the Bears, 70-63, in one of the wildest shootouts ever played in Morgantown. A year later, Baylor took West Virginia out to the woodshed with a 73-42 beating at retiring Floyd Casey Stadium.
 
Then it was back to Morgantown where West Virginia pulled off a stunning 41-27 upset over the fourth-ranked Bears, ruining Baylor's quest to qualify for college football's first-ever playoff.
 
Two years ago, at beautiful new McLane Stadium, the Bears were once again unfriendly as they ran and passed at will in a 62-38 victory.
 
And last year, Holgorsen got kicked out of Hal Mumme's "Air Raid Club" when his team tried just 26 passes, completing only 10, in a 24-21 come-from-behind victory over Baylor. The Bears led 14-3 at one point in the second quarter and the Mountaineers didn't finally take the lead until late in the third quarter when Gary Jennings made a 58-yard touchdown catch.
 
This year, Holgorsen doesn't know what to expect because everything at Baylor is so much different than what he was used to.
 
Art Briles is becoming a fading memory, and after one year with Jim Grobe as its interim coach, Baylor has placed its long-term fortunes in the hands of 42-year-old former Temple coach Matt Rhule.
 
Rhule was a walk-on linebacker for Joe Paterno at Penn State, then got into the coaching profession at Albright College in 1998. His assistant coaching resume includes stops at Buffalo working for Craig Cirbus, at UCLA working for Bob Toledo, at Western Carolina for Kent Briggs, at Temple for Al Golden and then one year working for Tom Coughlin with the New York Giants before being named Temple's head coach in 2013.
 
"I don't have a whole lot of familiarity with any of their coaches," Holgorsen admitted Tuesday. "There's just nothing in the past that I can pull from, which is odd in the Big 12. Usually, everybody you play in the Big 12 you have a whole lot of knowledge from the past that you can pull from. This is different, so we have to do a good job as a coaching staff of researching who these guys are; researching what their philosophies are. Luckily we have six games to be able to pull from and obviously we'll do that."
 
Beyond those six games, it's clear from what Rhule once did at Temple is that he is a program builder. After winning just two of 12 games his first season in 2013, he won six the following year before posting consecutive 10-win seasons and a pair of first-place finishes in the East Division of the American Conference.
 
"Coach Rhule is a defensive guy," Holgorsen noted. "He got Temple to the point where they were leading the country in defense."
 
Based on what he's done so far at Baylor, he's been playing a lot of guys with an eye toward the future.
 
"They're playing more people than we're playing," Holgorsen noted.
 
Zach Smith, Baylor's starting quarterback in last year's loss in Morgantown, has earned one of Baylor's coveted single-digit jerseys based on the way he played in competitive losses to Oklahoma and Kansas State.
 
Smith completed 33-of-50 passes for 463 yards in a 49-41 defeat to the then-No. 3 Sooners, and followed that up with a 291-yard, one-touchdown performance in a 13-point loss at Kansas State.
 
The West Virginia defensive coaches praised Smith's toughness, recalling the number of times he was hit during last year's game while continuing to perform at a high level. The wide receivers Smith is throwing the football to look like the Baylor receivers of old, although he is missing game-breaker Chris Platt, out for the season after suffering a knee injury against Oklahoma.
 
Denzel Mims, a 6-foot-3-inch, 197-pound sophomore from Daingerfield, Texas, has emerged as Smith's No. 1 option with 27 catches for 553 yards and seven touchdowns. Pooh Stricklin, a 6-foot-2, 185-pounder from Waco, has caught 22 passes for 290 yards but is still seeking his first touchdown catch.
 
All 12 of Smith's touchdown passes this year have gone to either Platt or Mims.
 
True freshman John Lovett, a former three-star prospect running back from Burlington, New Jersey, has emerged as Baylor's top ground gainer while stud runner Terence Williams continues to recuperate from offseason shoulder surgery.
 
The 6-foot-2, 225-pounder ran 11 times for 90 yards and scored one touchdown in last year's game in Morgantown, but has carried just 32 times for 148 yards in three games so far this season.
 
Lovett has gotten the bulk of the carries and leads the team with 383 yards, three touchdowns and a sparkling 5.3-yards-per-carry average. His best game so far came against Kansas State when he ran for 95 yards, 74 of those on one run going for a touchdown.
 
"They are still deep at running back and receiver," Holgorsen said.
 
Baylor's offensive two-deep features 14 sophomores and freshmen, while the defensive two-deep is comprised of 15 sophomores and freshmen. Two true freshmen (strongside linebacker Jalen Pitre and corner Harrison Hand) and a redshirt freshman (rush linebacker Deonte Williams) are starting on a Bear defense that is giving up 40 points and 517.7 yards per game.
 
"They're a four-down team that wants to pressure you hard up front and their linebackers are extremely aggressive," Holgorsen said.
 
Oklahoma State put 59 points on the scoreboard last Saturday in Stillwater, the Cowboys accumulating 747 yards of total offense in pinning a sixth loss on Baylor.
 


Twenty-third-ranked West Virginia has had its own problems defensively, allowing an alarming 210.7 yards per game on the ground and an average of 27.8 points per game. In last Saturday's 46-35 come-from-behind victory over Texas Tech, the Mountaineers surrendered 513 total yards, including 190 rushing.
 
But in the fourth quarter when defensive coordinator Tony Gibson decided to dial back the pressure, his defense gave up just 16 yards and completely shut down the Red Raiders on third down (0 for 4). West Virginia didn't allow a single rushing yard in the fourth quarter and harassed quarterback Nic Shimonek enough to force him into misfiring six out of nine times through the air, with his last throw being picked off by senior safety Kyzir White with 1:49 left in the game.
 
Quarterback Will Grier had another eye-opening offensive performance despite getting sacked four times and being pressured constantly, with the junior completing 32-of-41 passes for 352 yards and a season-high five touchdowns.
 
Grier has now thrown 21 touchdown passes - 12 going to mid-season All-American wide receiver David Sills V, who now shows 39 catches for 601 yards.
 
Junior Gary Jennings Jr. leads West Virginia with 48 catches but has only gotten into the end zone once so far this year.
 
No. 3 receiver Ka'Raun White has really come on in West Virginia's last two games against TCU and Texas Tech, with the senior catching six passes for 138 yards and a touchdown against the Horned Frogs and adding eight catches for 114 yards and two scores last Saturday against Texas Tech. He shows 31 catches for 461 yards and five touchdowns, while improving sophomore Marcus Simms gives Grier an explosive fourth option with 17 catches for 315 yards and three touchdowns.
 
Senior tailback Justin Crawford saw his streak of five straight 100-yard rushing games come to an end against Texas Tech with just 47 yards, dropping him to second this week in the Big 12 rushing race behind Oklahoma State's Justice Hill.
 
As a result, he is looking for a bounce-back performance on Saturday in Waco.
 
"We need to run the ball better," Holgorsen said. "I told the team that on Sunday, and we've addressed it and we're going to work hard on that. You have to have the mentality that we're going to run the ball, which I didn't see last week."
 
In just 19 games at WVU, Crawford is now 20^th in career rushing with 1,786 yards and needs only 152 yards to pass A.B. Brown for 19^th place. Crawford ran for a season-high 125 yards three weeks ago at Kansas, but he has yet to come close to the 331-yard performance he put forth against Oklahoma last year or the 209 yards he had against Baylor in the regular-season finale.
 
It's homecoming for Baylor this weekend, and the Bears would like nothing more than to get their first victory of the season against the Mountaineers in front of old alums, friends and family.
 
West Virginia (4-2, 2-1) is looking to stay in that five-team logjam in second place in the Big 12 standings behind league-leading TCU.
 
The top two teams at the end of the season will meet at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Saturday, December 2 for the Big 12 Championship.
 
Getting a rare victory in nearby Waco would keep WVU on a course toward Arlington.
 
"It's going to be a challenge for us," Holgorsen said. "We're 0-2 in Waco, so that's a lot of motivation to be able to change that. We have to be prepared for a wild homecoming atmosphere; a night game. The last time they played there at night they should have beaten Oklahoma.
 
"That will grab your attention. What they have done to us the last two times there will grab your attention."
 
An 8 p.m. kickoff has been established for Saturday's game, with television coverage being on either FS2 or FS1 based on what happens with the American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros.
 
If the Yankees and the Astros go to a game seven, the West Virginia-Baylor game will move to FS2.
 
Statewide radio coverage remains the same, beginning with the Mountaineer Tailgate Show (Dan Zangrilli, Dale Wolfley and Jed Drenning) at 4:30 p.m. EST leading into regular network coverage with Tony Caridi, Dwight Wallace and Jed Drenning at 7 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia, online through WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app TuneIn.