MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Late in the 1979 season, Frank Cignetti made the decision to play a bunch of freshmen and sophomores knowing that it was probably going to end up benefitting the next West Virginia football coach - which it did.
 
During a 31-6 loss at Penn State, Cignetti's young defense, with freshmen linebackers Darryl Talley and Dennis Fowkles out there, got Student-Body-Swept to death by the Nittany Lions.
 
On one particular toss sweep to the right, Talley recalled getting hit so hard by Mike Munchak and Sean Farrell that his helmet came off and he ran down the field trying to put it back on while the rest of his teammates were chasing after Matt Suhey.
 
Afterward, Talley looked at Fowlkes, who was taking his own beating, and said to him, 'That's it! Never again am I taking another ass whipping like this!
 
And they didn't! 
 
We all know what type of player Darryl Talley became at West Virginia and beyond - and the type of defense the Mountaineers turned into under Don Nehlen when Talley, Fowlkes, Todd Campbell and all of those other young players in 1979 grew into men in 1981 and 1982.
 
Now, hit the fast forward button 40 years and we're seeing the same thing play out on the football field right before our very eyes.
 
For the first time really since Cignetti's last year in 1979 – not in 1980 when Nehlen took over for Cignetti, not in 2001 when Rich Rodriguez replaced Nehlen, not in 2008 when Rich Rod set up Bill Stewart with an experienced football team coming off a Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma, and not in 2011 when Dana Holgorsen used all of those great weapons Bill Stewart left him to beat Clemson in the Orange Bowl – has a West Virginia coach been in the situation Neal Brown is in right now in having to use so many freshmen.
 
During last Saturday's loss to Iowa State, when the Mountaineers were still in the game going into the fourth quarter, the participation chart revealed 18 redshirt and true freshmen seeing significant action.
 
In that fourth quarter, when the Cyclones scored 17 unanswered points, Brock Purdy was throwing passes against a WVU secondary that had true freshman Nicktroy Fortune at one corner, true freshman Tae Mayo at the other corner, 184-pound true freshman Tykee Smith playing the Spear linebacker position and true freshman Jordan Jefferson rushing from the nose.
 
Also on the field at some point was true freshman free safety Kerry Martin Jr., a high school quarterback last year, as well as redshirt freshman Kwantel Raines!
 
On the other side of the football trying to keep up with Purdy was a Mountaineer offense consisting of true freshman wide receivers Ali Jennings and Winston Wright Jr., surrounded by a whole bunch of redshirt freshmen.
 
Two of the five guys blocking for backup quarterback Jack Allison were redshirt freshmen Briason Mays and James Gmiter and their three full games of college football playing experience.
 
Mays, in particular, had one of those Talley moments trying to handle 305-pound Iowa State nose tackle Ray Lima, a fifth-year senior with 30 game's-worth of college football experience under his belt – 27 more than Briason, incidentally.
 
The helmets and shoulder pads can sometimes conceal these things to the fans, but that's a significant disparity. 
 
It's basically a grown man going up against a boy still in the process of becoming a man.
 
"You're talking about a guy who has no idea mentally or physically where he's going to go, going up against a guy who is pretty much a grown man as far as his body goes," West Virginia defensive line coach Jordan Lesley explained. "He's as strong as he's going to be. He's as big as he's going to be and he's as fast as he's going to be in his whole life going against a guy who has no idea how big, fast or strong he's going to be."
 
"Briason … he battled," offensive line coach Matt Moore said. "But we knew going into the week that it was going to be tough sledding for him versus their nose guard, who is really good."
 
Not to mention really experienced, too!
 
By the way, Briason is going to get tossed right back into the fire this Saturday at Oklahoma, having to face the Sooners' 302-pound nose Neville Gallimore, another fifth-year senior with a mere 44 game's-worth of playing experience.
 
Senior Colton McKivitz went through this as a redshirt freshman. He remembers Youngstown State's Derek Rivers taking him to the woodshed in a game played here in Morgantown in 2017.
 
But unlike Mays, McKivitz had several experienced players out there to help cover for him.
 
"Briason had kind of a rough game this past weekend and now he's kind of feeling if he makes another mistake he's going to get benched or things like that so now it's about just reassuring him," McKivitz explained. "I brought up the Youngstown State game that I had my redshirt freshman year.
 
"I told him, 'If you want to watch a bad game watch that. Don't worry about the mistakes you made last week. Just move on and don't be afraid to make a mistake because that just leads to more bad plays.' For some of the younger guys, it's approaching things the same way every week and attacking it the same way."
 
Lesley said he's dealing with something similar with Jefferson, who backs up junior Darius Stills at nose and has seen action in all six games so far this year.
 
Lesley said Jefferson's biggest fear right now is disappointing his coach with missed assignments.
 
"That's the worst thing he can do," Lesley explained. "He's just got to play. When he does that he'll be fine."
 
Neal Brown has been down this path before. He did it when he was offensive coordinator at Kentucky and he did it again when he first arrived at Troy as head coach.
 
"In 2014 at Kentucky, we had to play a bunch," Brown recalled. "Offensively, if you just look at it from the offensive side of the ball, this is really the third time we've had to go through kind of one of these transformations. We had to do it at Troy in '15 and now this year."
 
Moore said his starting center that first season at Troy was a converted defensive lineman who had never played offensive line in a college football game (sound familiar, James Gmiter?). 
 
He ended up being a two-year all-conference performer for the Trojans.
 
"But those first two years, it was bad," Moore admitted. "It was tough watching him grow and right now I've got a couple of guys who are working through that. They're having to grow into that role."
 
"We're experiencing some growing pains, I think that's obvious," Brown added.
 
Veteran defensive coordinator Vic Koenning usually has something profound to say about these sort of things, and he didn't disappoint Tuesday afternoon.
 
Asked about all of those freshmen he's got running around out there with the possibility of even more being out there in the near future, he had this to say: "Every situation is different, and that's why we're here. We've been entrusted to do the best we can with these guys.
 
"The bigger picture is they're someone's son, and they're our son and we've got to do the best we can with these guys and motivate them, encourage them, love them and make them do right."
 
Koenning continued, "And beyond all of that there is this football game and I thought about this the other night. They don't give ribbons for participation if you are a coach. You win or you lose and at the end of the year you see how many Ws and how many Ls you have. They don't care how many freshmen you've got. Nobody really cares. There is no best-as-you-can … you either do or you don't."
 
That's Vic's unique way of explaining what Talley once told to his buddy Dennis Fowlkes in a very West Virginia way over at Beaver Stadium 40 years ago - "no more ass whippings!"
 
At some point you've got to grow up and become a man like Darryl Talley and Dennis Fowlkes had to do at Penn State.
 
There's going to come a time when all these young guys get their feet firmly planted on the ground and figure out what they're doing.
 
Perhaps it happens this week at No. 5 Oklahoma, or in a couple of weeks at undefeated Baylor … or maybe it's against rebuilding Texas Tech on Nov. 9 or at some other point down road.
 
But it's going to happen and when it does, the script gets flipped.
 
Saturday's Oklahoma game will kick off at noon and will be televised nationally on FOX (Gus Johnson, Joel Klatt and Jenny Taft).
 
The Mountaineer Sports Network's coverage begins bright and early at 8:30 a.m. affiliates throughout West Virginia leading into regular network coverage with Tony Caridi, Dwight Wallace and Jed Drenning at 11 a.m.