Covering a football team on a weekly basis and trying to figure out what they are can sometimes be like a cat trying to catch a laser dot: the target keeps moving, sometimes quickly.

By “what they are,” I mean of course, how good are they? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What’s the final record going to be? Can we even begin to predict Ws and Ls with any certainty?

Three weeks ago, in the wake (pun not intended) of the loss to Marshall, I sadly thought I knew what they were: a team that isn’t the most talented or deepest in the world, but one that also had some coaching issues that were making them less than the sum of their student-athlete parts. I think I used the word “grim.”

As I was leaving the stadium after this 30-13 win over Wake Forest, I texted Chris Coleman, “Best-coached and best-played game I’ve seen under Brent Pry.” I liked that thought so much that I texted it to him again about three hours later, forgetting that I’d already sent it.

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