If you haven’t seen Mystery, Alaska, you may want to stop reading this post now, because I’m going to give away the ending.

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As I’m sure most of my readers already know, the Mountaineers will be playing their first post-Rodriguez game tonight in the 2008 Fiesta Bowl. Go, Mountaineers!

[Halftime update: The Mountaineers have looked very good in this first half, and I have to say, even if OU comes back to win it in the second half, I'm very proud of them for shutting up some of the offhand dismissals of them by the Fox commentators.]

According to his dad, WVU kicker Pat McAfee has been receiving death threats as a result of two missed field goals in the December 1st game against the Pitt Panthers. Apparently, some “fans” have chosen to single out Pat for Saturday’s loss, and they feel that, for the crime of causing that loss, he should be terrorized.

Yes, Saturday’s loss was a huge disappointment. Yes, one could say, “if only Pat McAfee hadn’t missed those field goals, we could have won.” That might even be true^[a]. One could also say, “if only Jarrett Brown hadn’t fumbled that ball,” “if only Pat White hadn’t been injured,” “if only Steve Slaton had been given the ball more often,” “if only Owen Schmitt had been given the ball more often,” “if only Reynaud had caught that pass,” “if only the offensive line had been stronger,” or a thousand other “if onlies” that every WVU fan has had playing through his or her head since the end of that game. While saying that, though, one might also say, “if only pigs had wings and I’d won the lottery last night,” because it would be just as effective.

So the Mountaineers are only going to the Fiesta Bowl, not the national championship game. While disappointing, that’s definitely not something that someone deserves to die (or to be threatened with death) over, especially not a young man who has played very well all season (not to mention previous seasons) and just happened to have a poor performance on Saturday. Keep in mind that McAfee’s missed field goals were far from the only things going wrong on a Saturday in which the Mountaineers lost a game that we were favored to win by 28 points.

If your biggest problem in your life today is that your favorite football team has lost a game^[b], then you can count yourself extremely lucky. Get a little perspective and grow up, people.

1. Certainly, simply adding 6 points to the final score would’ve put us in the lead, but two of those points came from a safety that we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. [↩]
2. heck, even if your favorite football team lost every game [↩]

According to USA Today, WVU is now #1 in the coaches poll after last night’s win vs. Connecticut.

[WVU is #2 in the AP poll, though.]

In the comments to my previous post about the WVU/Mississippi State game, Irishladdy wrote:

I will admit the game on saturday from the 2nd quarter on was extremely boring. Our offense was ultra-conservative because we didn’t want to run the score up.

As I’ve mentioned, I don’t feel like I’m particularly qualified to write about sports, but I’m going to paraphrase that. “After we got a decent lead, our players stopped trying so hard.”

I’ve never understood the aversion to “running the score up.” I don’t think that a team that has a comfortable lead should be attempting onside kicks and such just so they can keep the other team’s offense from ever touching the ball, but there’s nothing unsportsmanlike about winning by a large margin if that margin comes simply from allowing your players to do their best on the field.

Irishladdy points out that we brought in our backup quarterback, Jarrod Brown, and I think we brought in another backup even later in the game. I want to be clear here that I’m not against allowing some of our other players the chance to get some game time if we feel comfortable doing so. However, I am against putting any of our players on the field if they are not going to be doing the best that they can do. It is disrespectful to the other team, and it is lousy sportsmanship.