Pat White's No. 5 Goes Up, Then the Mountaineers Hold On: WVU 31, Coastal Carolina 24

The pregame was perfect. Pat White stood at midfield at Milan Puskar Stadium on Saturday and watched his No. 5 join the short list of retired jerseys in West Virginia football history, a reminder of the years when Rich Rodriguez's offense was the most feared thing in the Big East. Then the game started, and for a quarter and a half the current Mountaineers looked like they remembered too.

Cam Cook went 75 yards for a touchdown on the opening drive. Michael Hawkins Jr. found Armani Weaver-Bomar for a 49-yard score, the first touchdown catch of Weaver-Bomar's career. Jack Cassidy added a 38-yard field goal, Cook scored again, and it was 24-0. The building was as loud as it has been in years.

Then Coastal Carolina scored 24 unanswered points. The Chanticleers are not a pushover, and Sun Belt teams have been ruining Power Four Septembers for a decade, but the way it happened will occupy Rodriguez's film room this week. The offense went quiet, the defense could not get off the field, and a comfortable afternoon turned into a one-possession game in the fourth quarter.

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Hawkins settled it himself, keeping the ball on an 11-yard run for the touchdown that made it 31-24 and finishing with two total scores. It was the kind of play Rodriguez built his reputation on, a quarterback who can turn a broken down into a first down, and it was the difference.

West Virginia is 1-0. That is the only line that goes in the standings. UT Martin comes to Morgantown on Saturday, September 12, at 1 p.m. ET, and the Mountaineers should win comfortably. The question for the Big 12 slate that follows is whether the team that built the 24-0 lead or the team that let it evaporate is the real one.