Well, for those of you who weren't convinced that West Virginia's national championship hopes were finished last weekend after a 24-3 loss to East Carolina in Charlotte, N.C., you finally have confirmation now.

Thanks to a 17-14 loss on national television Thursday night in Boulder, Colo., senior signal caller Pat White and the No. 21-ranked (not for long) Mountaineers won't have to worry about playing in Miami Jan. 8 for the BCS national championship.

Hell, they'll be lucky if they're even playing in a BCS bowl game this season.

That, after all, would require winning the Big East championship, and after the way you saw the Mountaineers' offense operate against the Buffaloes, an up-and-coming team in the unpredictable Big 12 North, I wouldn't be so sure that a conference opponent (Connecticut, Cincinnati, Pitt or USF?) won't hand WVU another loss later this year.

"There is a lot of heartache in that locker room," West Virginia coach Bill Stewart said following the loss. "But they'll grow and get better and I thank the seniors for being such great leaders. It was a fantastic effort they gave and I'm just sorry that they came up short."

But at the Division I level, effort only counts for so much. Rather, it simply comes down to wins and losses.

And at this rate, don't count on the Mountaineers taking out Auburn Oct. 23 when the Tigers travel to the Mountain State for another Thursday night clash on national TV.

Because to be quite honest with you, Stewart might be the most clueless head coach I've ever seen.

If you thought Karl Dorrell was bad UCLA fans, you might not have seen the worst.

Stewart, in fact, just might top them all.

For one, his clock management skills at the end of the game couldn't even pass at the Junior College level, and furthermore, the guy's play-calling is absolutely horrendous.

I really don't know if I've ever seen a coach mismanage a game worse than Stewart.

And when it comes to the play-calling, you don't have to look any further than West Virginia's lone offensive possession in overtime.

With some strong running from White and lighting-quick tailback Noel Devine, the Mountaineers did a nice job moving the ball against a stingy Colorado defense that made it tough for a WVU offense to break loose all night long.

Yet when WVU was faced with a third down and one from the 3-yard line, Stewart elected not to put Devine, who was having issues with his helmet, back on the field.

Instead, Stewart, after calling a timeout, elected to hand the ball off to Jock Sanders on a power sweep off the left side, which was sniffed out by the Colorado defense, leaving the Mountaineers short of the first-down marker.

But with the game on the line, why wasn't Devine in the backfield?

Yes, his helmet was malfunctioning, but couldn't a teammate, possibly Sanders or someone else on the sidelines, have loaned their helmet to Devine for one more play?

Even more, why was Stewart running the ball to the left side of the field rather than straight up the middle?

It's another puzzling coaching move that ultimately cost WVU the game as Pat McAfee buckled under the pressure and somehow managed to miss a chip shot (23-yard field goal), tagging the left upright with his kick and leaving the door wide open for Colorado to march down on its overtime possession and seal the deal with a 25-yard field goal from Aric Goodman.

"I feel sorry for Patrick McAfee," Stewart said afterward. "I don't know what happened with the hold or the kick, but the ball just hit the upright."

The only thing that Stewart should really be sorry for is his coaching ability.

I guess we now know why West Virginia president Michael Garrison and the entire administration didn't want Rich Rodriguez to leave last December when Lloyd Carr stepped down at Michigan.

Still, the administration didn't have to hire Rodriguez's knucklehead assistant, who is quickly showing why he's not worthy of the job and why many questioned the move after Rodriguez had taken the program to new heights during his seven-year stint in Morgantown.

If so, the Mountaineers might not be sitting at 1-2 with their season already bound to be a disappointment.

"We came out here to get us a win and we fell short and I hate that very, very much," the first-year coach asserted.

The Buffaloes, meanwhile, are sitting pretty with a perfect 3-0 mark, albeit a Homecoming beat down could be coming in a couple of weeks when Texas comes to town, followed by a tough trip over to Lawrence, Kan., for a date with the Jayhawks.

"I think that they believe and that's a critical component to anything," Colorado coach Dan Hawkins said with regard to his young and improving team. "I think they totally believe in what we're doing and why we do it, and that is huge. That confidence will grow."

They'll need that confidence to grow even more for next weekend's battle in Jacksonville against Florida State.

But they're in a lot better shape than Stewart or Rodriguez, whose Wolverines have also dropped to 1-2 after Notre Dame's pummeling in South Bend last weekend.

With that in mind, interesting times lie ahead for both coaches, and whether we'll be lucky enough to see Stewart finish out the season before fans start calling for his head will continue to be a mystery.

After last night's loss, though, the thought has had to have crept into more than just a few WVU fans' minds by now.

Because if they have to watch any more of what I witnessed Thursday night against Colorado, they'll be quickly losing their minds by season's end.