COLUMN: Anticipation is building, as we wait to find out if Virginia victory was a true turning point
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MORGANTOWN - Maybe it's just been the passing of so much time since the last time we felt this way that sort of makes this week feel a little different.
Here in Morgantown, there is a different buzz, a mounting anticipation that hasn't been felt quite to this level in a long time.
Right now, when someone catches you along the street and asks how the WVU football team is going to do this weekend, they actually care about the answer. No longer is it idle conversation, like talking about the weather or how the kids are doing.
That is what the hard running of Cam Cook has generated. That's what the versatile play of Michael Hawkins Jr. has created.
So badly is there a need for West Virginia's 38-27 victory last week against then-No. 25 Virginia to be the turning point, the signal going from red to green.
The ultimate question: Was it?
Ultimately that answer will be decided in the coming weeks, beginning Saturday against an Oklahoma State team that creates a matchup that maybe even the oddsmakers in Las Vegas don't know what to make of.
WVU is at home, yet is only a point-and-a-half favorite as of Wednesday morning. Considering the home team gets a traditional three-point bump, Vegas might still be a bit skeptical of the Mountaineers or maybe Vegas is like the rest of us in that we're just not sure which way to lean at the moment.
Surrounded by all of this is WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez, his staff and 105 players who can't afford to get caught up in any of it.
It's easy to be motivated when you feel like the world is against you. When that sentiment begins to change, it's also easy to get caught up in the euphoria.
WVU has already faced a certain level of adversity to this point, whether that was surviving Coastal Carolina's comeback attempt in the opener to making the proper adjustments against Virginia, after the Cavaliers did whatever they wanted in the first quarter.
The real adversity is yet to come. Either continue to make believers of us all or, well it's just another season come and gone with basketball and baseball right around the corner.
We admit that's a lot to throw onto the shoulders of a bunch of college kids, many of whom were still in middle school or elementary school the last time WVU was in the national picture.
The good news: Rodriguez believes he has a group worthy of handling the adversity.
"I think it speaks a little bit - even though we have a lot of new players - that there's a certain level of maturity that I think our guys have handled it," Rodriguez said. "There's going to be different tests, obviously, over the next two months of the season that our guys are going to get tested with that."
Is this group different? It's hard not to not to say yes right now. They're certainly better and in a much better situation than a year ago.
How much better? That's the real question.
"You don't really know," Rodriguez said. "There's still probably a lot of people, including us, who didn't know before Saturday who are we or what are we. I think you find that out as the season goes along. I don't think you can define your team in any one game, whether you win or lose.
"I think you continue to find your team throughout the season."
A 5-0 start is not out of the realm of possibility. That hasn't happened since 2018, when gasoline averaged $2.70 a gallon and rapper Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer Prize.
Boy, would the anticipation really build then, right? You never want to get too far ahead of yourself, but we all understand practical expectations. It's not asking the world for WVU to have a good football program.
Again, so much time has passed since it was actually felt around these parts, and so we cling with everything we have to that win over Virginia standing as the turning point.
If it was or wasn't, Rodriguez still feels the bus is moving in the right direction.
"We're going to face adversity the rest of the season and all of the conference games," he said. "We have to be mature enough to handle that. With a new group, everything is going to be a little bit new and fresh, but I thought I saw some growth in our players."