I believe your statement could apply to any non-conference road game at a middle of the road P5 program, the fact that it's WVU is cool and means a lot for older fans, but I doubt the kids playing in the game are viewing this as make or break. If something is defining anything it would need to be viewed as such.

The UNC win already defined our early season, and the ND game will further define the trajectory of the program either proving that we've turned the curse of Lane around and can beat highly ranked opponents or we got lucky. Our first road tilt in the conference will be the ultimate signal though.

WVU is important because it's a road game in a tough environment and we just lost our best offensive player so seeing how the team responds is big, at the end of the day it has no impact on the metrics that define a successful season these days (Coastal title, ACC title, beating UVA).