Last week, West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen took a walk on the wild side, ratcheting up the intensity in the practices leading up to Saturday's 20-16 victory over 14^th-ranked Iowa State.
 
This week, he's walking a tight rope between maintaining his team's newfound edge on the practice field and running the risk of getting some of his banged-up players even more banged up.
 
After all, this is week 10 of Big 12 football, and this is the time when all of those bruises begin to multiply.
 
Many years ago, former coach Jim Carlen used to say he wasn't about to lose football games on the practice field and rarely had strenuous workouts during the season.
 
For many years, Don Nehlen took the opposite approach. He conducted heavy practices on Tuesday and Wednesday to get his teams properly prepared for Saturday. Two different approaches by two very successful football coaches.
 
So, which is better?
 
"If you have an answer then let me know because it's a fine line between continuing to do that," Holgorsen said earlier this week.
 
While Holgorsen said he cranked things up last week because he felt it was needed, he's not so sure that's the way to go about things over the course of the final three weeks of the regular season with games looming against physical teams in Kansas State, Texas and Oklahoma.
 
"We know we're banged up, especially on the defensive side, so you have to gauge it a little bit," Holgorsen admitted. "So is everybody else."
 
This is where Holgorsen will rely on his experience through the years to help guide him through the rest of the season.
 
After all, he doesn't want the work his team did on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to negatively affect what they are going to do this Saturday.
 
Briefly:
 
* The biggest question from Morgantown to Manhattan is who is Kansas State going to start at quarterback on Saturday?
 
Regular quarterback Jesse Ertz has missed the last four games with a knee injury and his backup, Alex Denton, has missed the last two games with concussion-like symptoms.
 
No. 3 quarterback Skylar Thompson played the second half of K-State's 30-20 win at Kansas and then came in once again following intermission to lead the Wildcats to a wild, 42-35 victory over Texas Tech in overtime.
 
Thompson, a redshirt freshman from Independence, Missouri, passed for 96 yards and sparked K-State to its fifth victory of the season against the Red Raiders. Thompson led the Wildcats on three straight scoring drives with the game on the line.
 
Veteran Kansas State coach Bill Snyder said earlier this week the pecking order remains Ertz, Denton and then Thompson for Saturday's game against West Virginia, provided Ertz and Denton are medically cleared to play.
 
* Holgorsen has said repeatedly through the years how much he admires what Snyder has managed to accomplish at Kansas State, dating back to his first year there in 1989.
 
But Holgorsen's knowledge of Snyder extends well before that to Snyder's days working on Hayden Fry's staff at Iowa. Holgorsen grew up in Davenport, Iowa, and followed the Hawkeyes closely in the early 1980s when Fry had some of his best Iowa teams.
 
Holgorsen said his most vivid memory of Snyder was the stand-up tight end Iowa once employed.
 
"Do you guys remember that stand-up tight end? That was crazy," he said. "I still don't understand that, honestly. I know I've asked him about that before and it's so you can see things and make calls, but that's a tough get-off stance from there. But I recognized it forever.
 
"I used to grow up going to those games. He just happened to be on that staff with Hayden Fry and all those guys. That was a great tree: Bob Stoops and Mike Stoops were playing then. When I was going to games in high school, Bob Stoops was playing and now he's retired and Coach Snyder is still going," Holgorsen continued. "Barry Alvarez was on that staff; Jay Norvell, Chuck Long were there later. It's a pretty good tree."
 
* Last Saturday's game against 14^th-ranked Iowa State was West Virginia's fifth against a ranked team this year - matching 2014, 2007 and 1994 as the most times facing a ranked team in one year.
 
Preceding Iowa State, West Virginia faced 11^th-ranked Oklahoma State, 24^th-ranked Texas Tech, eighth-ranked TCU and 21^st-ranked Virginia Tech in the season opener.
 
Although Saturday's opponent, Kansas State, is not in the rankings, the Mountaineers will have at least one more ranked foe on the horizon - No. 5 Oklahoma coming up on Saturday, Nov. 25, with the possibility of yet another ranked team in a bowl game.
 
That will make six nationally ranked teams in one year, and perhaps a seventh, which will be the most WVU has ever faced in one season.

Four national ranked opponents have been played 12 times.
 
Since joining the Big 12 in 2012, West Virginia is averaging roughly four nationally ranked football opponents per year.
 
When the Mountaineers were in the Big East, that number was approximately 3 ½, and around two per year after Miami and Virginia Tech left the league in 2003.
 
Back in 1983, West Virginians once referred to the football team's stretch of games that year against Maryland, Boston College, Pitt, Virginia Tech, Penn State and Miami as "Murderer's Row."
 
Well, this year's schedule beginning with Virginia Tech, and then continuing with nine straight weeks without a break against the Big 12 has to rank right with it, if not tougher.
 
Kansas State is 5-4 and is seeking its sixth victory on Saturday to become bowl eligible for the 19^th time under Snyder; Texas still has a shot of becoming bowl eligible with games left against Kansas, West Virginia next weekend in Morgantown and Texas Tech to conclude the regular season.
 
And Oklahoma, which is right in the middle of the college football playoff discussion, has a big game looming Saturday night against TCU followed by games against Kansas and WVU.
 
This speaks to the great depth and competitiveness of the Big 12 this year, and it also speaks to where Dana Holgorsen has West Virginia's football program right now - one that continues to play winning football against some of the most difficult schedules in school history.
 
Enjoy your weekend!