MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) — One week until kickoff.
Seven days. One-hundred-and-sixty-eight hours. That's 10,800 minutes.
You get the picture.
West Virginia is getting serious about Maryland now.
Decisions have been made. Position battles are over and game-planning for next Saturday's 3:30 p.m. kickoff is nearly finished.
Tension builds in players. It builds in coaches, too.
That's what makes it so wonderful.
Echoes of Jack Fleming's voice ring clearly throughout the state. Let's back to one of four times the Mountaineers beat Boston College and Doug Flutie:
"Here's Flutie being chased. They're after him. Did they get him? They got him! They got him back at the 47-yard-line. That was Matt Smith, the linebacker. They got Flutie. They got him that time. All afternoon they've been chasing him. All afternoon they've pursued him. They got him at the 26-and-a-half-yard line for the first sack of the ball game, only the sixth sack of the season for Flutie ... "
Echoes of Tony Caridi's call of Grant Wiley's fourth-down stop of Virginia Tech's Lee Suggs on the goal line in Blacksburg, Virginia, again fill the memory:
"And folks, this is going to be it. Thirteenth play of the drive. Will it be lucky or will it be unlucky? No. 13 for the Hokies. Fourth down and goal, about eight inches away from the goal line. Randall is under center, Power-I formation. Randall barking signals, hands the ball off to Suggs. SUGGS IS STOPPED SHORT! West Virginia gets the football. It was Grant Wiley. Grant Wiley stopped Lee Suggs with 3:51 to go. And there is pandemonium on the West Virginia sideline ... "
One week until the rumbling begins, a Maryland team that is building under Mike Locksley will be hosting WVU as the rivalry renews after a five-year gap, a wide gap but not as wide as the talent gap that existed when it came to a halt in 2015 after WVU beat the Terps for the ninth time in 10 meetings.
Much is different. Brown is now coach at WVU. Dana Holgorsen is gone. His quarterback, too, is gone, that being Skylar Howard, while Jarret Doege enters his final season taking snaps.
One thing that hasn't changed is West Virginia's pass defense. The people running it are different, and the alignment is different, but last year it led the nation in fewest passing yards allowed, and in that last Maryland game, the Mountaineers came up with five interceptions, one each by K.J. Dillon, Terrell Chestnut, Karl Joseph, Jeremy Tyler and Daryl Worley.
While there were key defections from last year's secondary through the transfer portal in safety Tykee Smith and cornerback Dreshun Miller, WVU is filling those holes with a couple of players they regard highly in safety Scottie Young, an Arizona transfer, returning cornerback Jackie Matthews and Illinois State transfer Charles Wood.
"It took some time, but I feel I can adapt to things quick," Young said. "That comes with maturity. When you have a goal, when you know what you want, things come kind of easy, like being able to adapt. You put a lot of outside noise to the side and you focus on what you want."
Maryland is a tough opener to a tough schedule that includes 11 games against Power 5 opponents.
"It's very challenging," Neal Brown said. "We play 11 Power Five teams. I think we're one of four universities to play 11 Power Fives, nine leagues and we play two regional rivals. The regional rivals are important to our fan base."
That's Maryland in Week 1, Virginia Tech in Week 3.
With the uncertainty in WVU's place in the college football power structure, considering the fragile nature of the Big 12, victories over a Big 10 and an ACC team would loom large as they try to put Humpty Dumpty back together again in college football.
Like college football, Brown is trying to put WVU football back together again and has made large strides in changing both the culture and talent level as he enters Year 3, closely following the same pattern that emerged as he did the same thing at Troy University in Alabama.
If it holds together this year, Brown will have some upsets stored up for top-ranked teams, although he's not ready to judge his team yet.
"Our theme for this year is to be better, and that's our objective in every phase," Brown said during Big 12 Media Day. "Culturally, our buy-in is extremely high right now. We've made tremendous progress in the last two years with the culture of our football program. On the field, I like our team. I think our leadership is better than at any point since i was named coach."
All that's left is to ring out those echoes of the glory days is to translate that into victories, beginning next weekend.
