Last weekend, former West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen was relieved of his duties as the offensive coordinator at Nebraska by Matt Rhule.

It's the second time he's been fired since leaving West Virginia following the 2018 season, and it all could have been prevented if he had approached things differently toward the end of his stint in Morgantown.

In the couple of years leading up to the 2018 season, Holgorsen had his eyes set on that being the year when the Mountaineers could truly break through and be a contender in the Big 12. Remember, this is when you could kind of anticipate when you'd be in position to contend because the transfer portal and NIL weren't a thing yet.

It felt like heading into 2018, the high school recruiting class was kind of an afterthought. It was banking on loading up that '18 team with as much veteran talent as possible and hopefully cashing in with a conference championship and then some.

Midway through the year, it looked like that gamble was going to pay off. They were unbeaten and ranked as high as 6th in the country. And then the meltdown at Oklahoma State happened, the shootout loss to Oklahoma and a bowl loss to Syracuse, where he did not fly back with the team and ultimately finalized a deal to leave for Houston.

Even Dana himself said, "In this profession, you’ve got to take some gambles."

He referred to his two gambles as leaving Texas Tech to go to Houston to call plays and then leaving Oklahoma State for the head coaching job at West Virginia. I'd argue that not having a young core of talent behind Will Grier and Co. was a third gamble that ultimately put him in a position where he had to leave WVU.

The writing was on the wall for him in Morgantown following the '18 campaign, having fallen short of expectations that year, and there not being much of a chance to sustain the success in 2019. West Virginia wasn't going to give him an extension, so it made sense for him to move on and, at the time, go down a level to the Group of Six and get a fresh start.

There's no telling what would have happened if the Mountaineers had held on to beat one of the two Oklahoma schools and played for a Big 12 championship. Dana certainly would have been the coach in 2019, but how much longer beyond that is something we'll never know.

Although he once told TCU reporters that he had no regrets about how things ended at WVU, you'd have to think somewhere deep down he does wish he had handled it differently.

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