West Virginia University finds itself in a tight spot as the football season winds down. For a team that has vastly improved its offensive numbers over last season, the defense has been simply horrible at times. Having improved by 11.6 points per game (25.2 to 36.8) and passing improving by more than 50% from 213 yards to 362.1 yards this season, the entire offense is explosive at an average of 479.4 yards per game. With two games left, the Mountaineers find themselves behind Cincinnati and tied with Rutgers in the BIG EAST, who both lost to the Mountaineers. The sad part is the two losses were to Syracuse and Louisville who both have 5-5 overall records. WVU were seriously embarrassed by the Orange in Syracuse then had a difficult time defensively with Louisville at Mountaineer field. The next two weeks are critical for West Virginia as they face Pitt, 5-5 & 3-2 in conference and then South Florida, currently 5-4 & 1-4 in the conference. With Cincinnati, Rutgers and West Virginia the only apparent decent teams in the BIG EAST, hopefully, they will wind down the season with two wins. However, Pitt is seemingly never an easy game, regardless if they are playing in Morgantown or not. The hope for Mountaineer fans is they see more of what they witnessed in Cincinnati--a solid defense and good special teams play that won the game in the final seconds with a blocked field goal. The officiating in Cincinnati was some of the worst college football has ever seen. The referees even lost track of downs at one point and Dana Holgerson had to argue the call. During that argument, Holgerson was said to have look as confused as he would have been had he been arguing that it was Saturday. WVU quarterback Geno Smith was also reprimanded for his comments regarding the officiating. It remains to be seen where West Virginia will end up in the bowl game mix, seeing they are able to win their final two games. One ESPN analyst pitted them against Clemson which is simply idiotic at this stage. The Mountaineers are struggling to break the top 25 and the Tigers are ranked #7. It\'s more likely WVU will face someone like Nebraska, Southern Miss, TCU, or Georgia. Whatever the challenge, we know Holgerson\'s offense can put up the numbers, let\'s just hope the defense shows up. It was just five and six years ago when a young West Virginia team shocked Georgia and Georgia Tech in back to back bowl games. A freshman Quarterback named Pat White started a string of four consecutive bowl game wins in 2006 while Geno Smith waited in the wings for his turn. It\'s almost certain that Smith will return for his senior year at WVU due to a very high level class entering the NFL draft after this season.

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