Buried deep within last Saturday's disappointing 50-39 loss to Oklahoma State was the performance put forth by sophomore linebacker David Long Jr.
 
The Cincinnati resident was credited with 18 total tackles, seven for losses.
 
His seven TFLs are the most ever recorded by a WVU player, and his 18 stops represent the most by a Mountaineer defender since Grant Wiley hauled down 18 Miami Hurricanes in the Orange Bowl on Oct. 2, 2003.
 
"We've been bragging about David for quite some time," West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said. "He had a great freshman year, lost him in the summer, which we felt like we lost our best defensive player. Then, he comes back on time and it probably took him a few weeks to get his feet underneath him a little bit, but he played outstanding. You can't block him; he keeps his feet and he makes tackles."
 
He certainly does.
 
Before we dig even deeper into Long's amazing performance against the Cowboys, it's probably a good idea to explain a little bit how tackles have been recorded in the past, and why there are so many discrepancies regarding this stat.
 
Before 2003, when the NCAA first began recognizing defensive statistics, tackles were logged by defensive coaches during film study and then passed along to the sports information departments.
 
That's why you frequently saw such heavily inflated tackle totals during the pre-millennium period.
 
Even before the NCAA began relying solely on defensive statistics submitted by official stat crews (sometime in the mid-2000s, I believe) there was often a wide disparity between what the stat crews in the press box were recording as tackles and what the coaches were crediting as tackles during film review the following day.
 
For instance, the defensive coaching staff once credited safety Ricky Sherrod with 22 total tackles in a 2001 game at Syracuse, while the Syracuse stat crew had him down for just 15.
 
In that same game, the defensive staff awarded linebacker Grant Wiley with 22 tackles while the Syracuse stat crew said he only made 12.
 
That's a pretty significant difference.
 
The point is, it's impossible to fully gauge such an objective statistic.
 
Did linebacker Steve Dunlap really make 28 tackles against Boston College in 1974? The defensive coaches thought he did - and if you ask Steve, he will tell you he did.

Did linebacker Chris Haering really make 15 unassisted stops against Maryland in 1989? Maybe. Lee Harvey Oswald also may have had some help. Who knows?
 
But getting back to what Mr. Long did against Oklahoma State last Saturday, it is clearly one of the best defensive efforts put forth by a WVU player since the NCAA began recording defensive statistics.
 
No WVU defender since 2003 has had that many tackles, and no defender in school history has had that many TFLs in a one game.
 
Not consensus All-America Grant Wiley, not consensus All-American Canute Curtis, not consensus All-American Aaron Beasley, not consensus All-American Darryl Talley, who once had five TFLs in a freezing rainstorm against Penn State in 1980.
 
In fact, according to the website Sports Reference.com, which has charted defensive statistics since 2005, Long is the only NCAA player to have 18 total tackles and seven tackles for losses in the same game.
 
Can this be verified? Probably not.
 
But I do know he had one helluva football game last Saturday afternoon against the Cowboys, that's for sure.
 
Now, about the rest of those guys on the WVU defense …
   
One troubling similarity between what Long accomplished last Saturday against Oklahoma State and what Sherrod and Wiley achieved by logging such high tackle totals in 2001 is that in both instances, those guys played on struggling Mountaineer defenses.
 
That will probably always be the case if just one or two guys are making all of the tackles.
 
"I've been bragging about Al-Rasheed Benton all year and Al has been playing well," Holgorsen said. "But there's nine other positions out there and if those nine positions don't play like that, we're going to give up 50. That's the bottom line. You can't play defense with one or two guys."
   
My WVU baseball bird dogs tell me World Series MVP George Springer once hit the longest home run they had ever seen at Hawley Field when Springer played for Connecticut. They say Springer's mammoth blast cleared the Shell Building, although I would've had to have to seen it with my own eyes to believe it.
 
I was told West Virginia's Bob Bernardo once hit the top of the Shell Building during an Atlantic 10 Tournament game against Temple, which is also hard to believe.
 
I recall Mark Landers and Scott Seabol hitting some bombs at Hawley Field, but not quite that far.
   
Iowa State will have a couple of WVU connections traveling to Morgantown for Saturday's game. Former Mountaineer defensive end Mark Thurston owns the title of assistant director of scouting on Matt Campbell's Cyclone staff while Mike Saltus is Iowa State's assistant director of creative media.
 
Mike used to work for our video productions team before landing his new role with Iowa State last spring.
   
I noticed former Mountaineer offensive lineman Donny Barclay has caught on with the Detroit Lions. He was released by the Green Bay Packers earlier this week.
   
Iowa State has 17 seniors listed on its two-deep roster heading into Saturday's game against West Virginia, which is roughly the same amount of experience Dana Holgorsen's Mountaineer team had last year when it won 10 regular season games.
   
A matter of just 13 points separate 6-2 Iowa State from being an undefeated football team. The Cyclones lost by three in overtime to rival Iowa, and dropped a 10-point decision to Texas back on Sept. 28. Both of those losses were at home. Iowa State is 3-0 on the road this year, including a pair of conference road victories at Oklahoma and Texas Tech.
   
Offensive coordinator Jake Spavital said his players watched the Oklahoma State tape as an entire unit before hitting the practice field on Sunday evening.
 
"We counted eight dropped passes, and we had about five bad balls," he said. "There were a few one-on-one missed blocks on plays and we missed about six or seven holes in the run game. They could tell we weren't on the same page and that's something we've got to get better at this week because this is the ultimate team game and we need to get 11 guys on the same page if we're going to have any success against Iowa State."
   
Spavital said Iowa State is going to make you work for everything you get and it's a must for the WVU offense to capitalize on chunk plays when those opportunities come.
   
The fact that Iowa State has not lost a single fumble this year demonstrates how well coached the Cyclones are. Iowa State ranks eighth in the nation in turnover margin (plus-10) and has won the turnover battle in all six victories this season.
 
In two seasons under Campbell, Iowa State is 9-2 when winning the turnover battle.
 
Meanwhile, West Virginia is even with its opponents in turnovers so far this year with 13 each. The Mountaineers created four turnovers last Saturday against Oklahoma State, but gave up five.
   
Wide receivers coach Tyron Carrier was unhappy with the eight dropped passes his players had last Saturday against Oklahoma State. Some of that could be blamed on the wet playing conditions.
 
"They went from the regular gloves to the wet gloves to bare-handed," Carrier said. "I was probably the reason for them going bare-handed because I lost my cool and said, 'everybody take them off' and they started catching the ball. It was a learning period for them and for me also."
 
The weather forecast for Saturday's game against Iowa State looks to be a little drier, with temperatures expected to reach the low 60s.
   
We might see something on Saturday against Iowa State that we rarely see these days - a huddle. The Cyclones are averaging roughly 68 plays per game, their opponents' 69. West Virginia, meanwhile, is averaging 77 plays per game.
 
Years ago, I remember once asking West Virginia running back Avon Cobourne to describe quarterback Rasheed Marshall's huddle presence, to which he answered, "We don't huddle."
 
Maybe I will ask somebody after Saturday's game to describe Kyle Kempt's huddle presence, just for old-time's sake.
   
And finally, the men's and women's basketball teams will begin the season ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 poll.
 
Bob Huggins' Mountaineer men will begin the season ranked No. 11, while Mike Carey's women will start at No. 13.
 
It's only the second time ever both programs have started the season ranked in the same year. It also happened last year, when the men were ranked 20^th and the women 22^nd to begin the season.
 
Incidentally, Carey's Mountaineers are becoming a fixture in the women's preseason poll. It's the sixth time since 2009 his teams have started the season ranked, including the last three years in 2015, 2016 and now 2017.
 
That's the ultimate sign of respect.
 
Have a great weekend everyone!