Here's my dump of thoughts:
1) Gameday atmosphere - MUCH improved. I've been critical of the gameday experience since I went to WVU 2 years ago. They managed the crowd so much better than we did back then, and this past Saturday was the first time I thought we did a great job. We played hype music at the right times and let it go right up to the snap (just like WVU did). The band was actually rocking much better than I remember as well. The crowd was far from a sellout (weather, etc) but was as pretty darn loud when it needed to be. Concessions were super smooth - probably the fastest concessions I've ever experienced. Entrance was no problem. Grade A from Jamie.
2) Our coaches did not have a great day. There were a number of mistakes that fall on coaching. I'll give them a C-. It was glaringly not good.
2a) The play where we were going to go for it on 4th and short (I think in the 1st qtr). You could tell they were trying to get a play called, but communication wasn't good enough to go ahead with it. I'm not saying the delay was bad (it wasn't). But you could tell that CMC wasn't happy with the inability to get a play in to attempt that 4th and short.
2b) The long TD where Caleb Bacon was trying to cover their RB. It was super easy to see exactly how that play was going to go down before the snap. They motioned the RB out of the slot to the far sideline, when #50 went with him, it was obvious. It could have been an execution problem on the D where the safeties were supposed to shift in that case, but either way the D was not setup for that play. So possibly Heacock, possibly Fryler?
2c) Why in gods name do we show our formation after a timeout? There were at least 2 occasions where after a timeout, we'd line up for a play with 20-30 seconds on the tv timeout clock. FFS just stay in a huddle until the ref winds the clock - don't give their defense all the time in the world to line up how they want.
2d) Don't punt the ball with 20+ seconds on the clock when seemingly the previous 3 plays were all about killing the clock. That was really dumb and is on the coaches.
2e) There was a play earlier in the game where Becht changed the play at the line to a run play on a 3rd down. The defense knew exactly what was going to happen. That's again on the coaches. If you're going to audible to a run, it can't be that obvious. Now to give credit, we did use the counter to that later in the game and it worked beautifully.
2f) there was a sequence when we had a TV timeout. Heacock got the entire team together in a huddle. CMC was obviously chatting with the coaches in the box. I don't know if it was necessarily a bad thing, but it was interesting that if you didn't know, you'd think Heacock was the head coach at the time. Yes, we were on defense - but it was both offense and defense in the huddle. Best case scenario, CMC was working out some of the issues mentioned above with the coaches upstairs.
3) Norton's injury. I'm calling BS that it was a stinger. His reaction was that of someone who knows he's injured and will have a long recovery. I've seen it from many people who for example have gone through an ACL reconstruction only to injure it again. It's possible it's not as bad as Norton thought, but I personally would be surprised to see him in the next few weeks. It absolutely looked like a significant shoulder injury.
4) Daniel Jackson was the biggest difference in this game compared to the rest of the season. Noel had a good game too (but he did have 1 drop), but having Jackson was a big difference. On his TD catch he had a FILTHY move at the line that made his defender fall down. He also had a number of nice routes to find space. If defenses are going to take away the downfield TE and Noel, it's huge to have Jackson step up to be a 3rd option.
5) Becht IS the next Brock Purdy. I know many are going to balk at this, but I'm comfortable saying it. Purdy might have more wiggle and has the pump fake, but Becht might actually be more accurate. He's at least as good at seeing the field and is at least as accurate as Purdy was his freshman year. Becht probably even has a quicker release and a touch better arm strength. Regardless of who has the edge in specific categories, Becht IS 100% as good as Purdy was his freshman year at the QB position. A guy at the WVU game 2 years ago was lamenting that WVU didn't recruit Becht (his dad played at WVU). That guy was right.
6) We're missing 4 of the 6 players who got caught up in the gambling deal. Grant Treiber, Isiah Lee, DeShawn Hanika, Jirehl Brock. All would help with leadership and depth. Sauser I don't think would have played, but who knows with the OL.
7) Special teams is 1000x better than it ever has been under CMC. Yes we missed a couple FG's last week - I don't care, it's still that much better. There are still some details to be worked out there, especially snap/hold on the FG unit. But seriously what a huge breath of fresh air to NOT be scared of kickoffs, punts, punt return, etc.
8) Coach Nate S. called a pretty good game. I loved the RB screen, even though the execution wasn't great. Same with the QB run on 4th and short even though it didn't work. Flea flicker, hell freaking yes (by the way, that 100% should have been defensive holding on that play on BOTH cornerbacks). Again I don't care that it didn't work, but when you're so predictable that you may as well be giving the opposition your play calls, you HAVE to make these types of counter calls. Some won't work out and that's okay. It's like taking a deep shot that doesn't work. Even if it doesn't work, the defense has to think about it and that can open up the inside run (that we need to use super sparingly).