Yesterday at halftime of the victory over Cincinnati, Coach Dana Holgorsen and the Mountaineer football team were introduced and honored for their record setting victory over Clemson in the 2012 Orange Bowl.

h/t to BlueGoldNews.com for the video

Recent ESPN SportsNation polls about a BCS playoff reaffirmed what most of America knew beforehand – the SEC states love the BCS the way it is. The rest of us…not so much.

One poll question was, "What’s your take on a 4-team playoff in college football?"

• 62% of America thought four teams weren’t enough.
• 48 states thought that four teams weren’t enough.
• Only Alabama and Alaska thought four was fine. Do they play football in Alaska?

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Horatio got to spend some time in his usual stomping grounds of Miami last night to investigate:

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Oliver Luck needs to take a bow today. And a much deserved break.

WVU's AD was much maligned last spring for his succession plan to replace Bill Stewart with Dana Holgorsen. To some he was disloyal to a "good man" like Stewart by forcing him to leave after three consecutive nine-win seasons and three straight bowl games. To others, Luck was foolish to think he could keep a civil atmosphere in the football offices by forcing the head coach to resign and making him a figure head for an entire season.

What I celebrate today is Oliver Luck's commitment to WVU's athletic future. If being loyal to WVU fans and true to his instincts meant having to send Elmer Fudd packing (incidentally, we discovered that Stew wasn’t such a nice guy after all), then God bless the AD. Luck’s only mistake was not being more "unkind" to Stewart and showing him the door from the outset.

Oliver Luck is my Orange Bowl MVP! In one year he has made the difficult and often painful moves necessary to get WVU athletics moving toward unprecedented heights. His levelheaded guidance through "Stewmageddon" and the chaos of conference realignment has been rewarded. Last night’s Orange Bowl "Mountaineer Massacre" (SI.com’s headline) made this past turbulent year pay off.

Today it is difficult to remember the mess that was last June or the hysteria of conference realignment. In the afterglow of the best night in WVU sports history (simultaneous BIG football and basketball wins), I’ve managed to forget how nail biting it was this past fall to wonder whether we’d be stuck in Big East Hell forever. What I do recall is that through it all, "Ollie" stayed as cool as a cucumber, never flinching or equivocating.

WVU isn’t completely out of the woods regarding the timing of its move to the Big 12. However, knowing that the former QB Luck is still calling the plays for WVU Athletics, makes the future look as bright as today’s Miami sun.

Oliver Luck, I sure hope that you and your son Andrew are enjoying a beer together and chilling under a palm tree on Miami Beach today. You deserve it.

Wow. Just W-O-W. A record setting Orange Bowl victory for the Mountaineers and you can get your own shirt to commemorate the occasion. Seventy points. Seven Zero. Put that in your Musket and smoke it.

Dana, Tavon, Geno and company certainly put on a BCS bowl show for the ages. 593 yards, 31 first downs and of course 70 points. Geno Smith was the MVP, putting up 401 passing yards and 6 TD passes and another 1 rushing. Tavon chipped in 11 receptions for 117 yards and 4 TDs with another 46 yards on the ground, finishing the season as the NCAA FBS leader for all-purpose yards in the 2011 season.

WVU gave up a long touchdown run early and it was looking like it was going to be a back and forth game. Then THE PLAY happened. In a game that featured 103 points scored, it was a defensive play that set momentum squarely on the side of the Mountaineers for the remainder of the game. Clemson was looking to recapture the lead when Andre Ellington took the hand-off on first and goal from the 3, only to fumble the ball away to Darwin Cook who turned and ran the ball 99 yards (and 35 inches according to EDSBS) the other way for the score. Shawne Alston also chipped in 2 rushing touchdowns and Stedman Bailey and Willie Milhouse each contributed a touchdown reception to the onslaught.

If you didn't watch the Sugar Bowl last night or see the Deadspin link in this morning's Shotgun/Throwdown, let me be short and to the point...Brad Nessler is a geographical idiot.

Why is it so hard for people? I don't understand it. It's bad enough to have to endure the stereotyping that we West Virginians face on a regular basis. But, to not even recognize that West Virginia is one of the 50 states? Down right unforgivable. So, we add another name to the list of ESPN television personalities without much of a shred of brain function. Dang Brad, to think, we usually counted you among the good ones. I guess, not anymore.

I have a crazy Oregon Duck friend who had extra Rose Bowl tickets, so he took my two high school boys and me. We wore green Oregon shirts to honor his sacrifice, and we were pretty sure we’d see a good game. We didn’t. We watched an incredible game. Not only was the contest great, the atmosphere around this bowl is incredible: The parade, the mass of partisan fans from around the country, the tailgate fiestas. As well, the economic and cultural impact to the city of Pasadena is immeasurable - though the Rose Bowl officially reports that it has a $180 million dollar economic impact.

Like a lot of folks, I am tired of having polls or the BCS formula decide which two teams get to play for the national championship. I would much rather have seen Oklahoma State get their shot at LSU, because two-loss Oregon and one-loss Alabama already got theirs. And as a die-hard Mountaineer fan, I know we’re rarely going to get the benefit of the doubt if it comes down to an SEC team or us. There has to be a solution that gives more teams a legitimate shot at playing for the big prize at season’s end.

But I love the bowl system. I’ve followed WVU to the Sugar Bowl and the Gator Bowl (twice), and there is nothing like a multi-day Mountaineer football festival. People whom I don’t know hug me and buy me meals and drinks. I don’t get to WVU home games often because I live thousands of miles away from Morgantown, so bowls are usually the only time I get to see the Pride of West Virginia play "Hail West Virginia" in person.

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There's been a lot of opinion tossed around (both here and other places) about how, perhaps, Geno Smith has regressed over the season and since last season. So I thought a comparison of actual statistics for the season and versus the would-have-been-Mountaineer was in order. Let's get to it...

First, here's Geno's numbers over the 2011 season:

Now, let's see how this trends graphically:

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