West Virginia football is back on the map

Last week, West Virginia head football coach Dana Holgorsen and the new Mountaineer mascot Jonathan Kimble took a trip out to Los Angeles.

The two were with the College GameDay crew filming a new commercial featuring WVU football.

[caption id="attachment_591" align="alignright" width="200" caption="WVU Mountaineer Jon Kimble with ESPN College GameDay's Erin Andrews"][/caption]

Perhaps you’ve seen some of GameDay’s commercials.

There are a few in particular that instantly come to mind for me, personally.  One featuring LSU head coach Les Miles’ grass-eating habit.

Another is with Alabama’s Nick Saban and Texas’ Mack Brown playing Jenga with the GameDay crew.

Finally, one of my favorites, a 15 second ad in which Urban Meyer is showing off his rings to Kirk Herbstreit while playing bocce ball.

Aside from starring in a GameDay spot, these four coaches all have one other thing in common: national title rings.

So, this trip made by Holgorsen and the Mountaineer tells me one thing: West Virginia football is back on the map.

It has been a while since WVU has received this kind of attention before the season even started.

Entering the 2006 season, three Mountaineer legends, Pat White, Steve Slaton, and Owen Schmitt, were featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Thanks to a stunning 38-35 victory over the Southeastern Conference champion Georgia Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl to end the 2005-06 season, there was a huge buzz surrounding the star-studded Mountaineer backfield.

Last season, a similar trio of offensive stars emerged.

Quarterback Geno Smith and inside receivers Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey proved last season that they can score as well as anyone in the country, forcing the rest of the country to take notice.

This year’s squad, fresh off a record-shattering 70-33 Orange Bowl dismantling of Clemson — a game in which they probably could have put up 100, is now drawing attention similar to that of White and company.

The 2006-07 squad responded to the attention by finishing with a respectable 10-2 regular season record and finishing with a 38-35 Gator Bowl victory over Georgia Tech.

In the end they didn’t quite live up to the No. 6 preseason billing granted to them by SI.

To appease the desires of Mountaineer nation, this year’s team will have to finish better — which won’t be easy in their first year in the Big 12 Conference.

But, like it or not, the expectations are there.

Recently ESPN’s College Football Live tabbed WVU at No. 11 in its preseason Top 25 rankings.

ESPN and many other national college football syndicates have been giving the Mounties a lot of love recently, which brings me to another point.

Mountaineer nation: can we please stop with the whole, “ESPN hates us” routine?

GameDay made a trip to Morgantown last season and liked it so much they invited us to visit them.  So please, stop with the self-pity.

All we can do now, is wait for our team to earn the love that has been coming their way.