The drop in West Virginia's offense this year has been anything but a mirage, showing just how much they do miss running back Steve Slaton, fullback Owen Schmitt and wide receiver Darius Reynaud.

Through five games a year ago, including a really tough opponent in South Florida, the likes of which WVU has not seen this year, the Mountaineers averaged 507 yards of total offense a game compared with 357 this year.

The Mountaineers of 2007 scored 27 offensive touchdowns to this point compared with 14 this year -- about twice the production.

But if you dig deeper into those statistics, you find that something very strange has occurred.

While much criticism has been placed upon de-emphasizing quarterback Patrick White's role in the offense this year, especially in the running game, the facts do not back that up.

Almost forgotten was that White was not used extensively -- or successfully -- in the running game early last year. In his first five games, he managed to run for only 322 yards compared with 428 this year. True, he did score six rushing TDs in last year's first five games compared to just two this year, but he wasn't really a huge factor in the running game.

In fact, White had only one 100-yard rushing game through the season's first seven games in 2007, but then came on spectacularly as he rushed for 146 yards or more in five of the final six games.

White's history has been to do his best work on the ground as the season wears on. As a sophomore he didn't have a 100-yard running game in the first five games, then rushed for 100 or more in five of the last seven games, twice gaining more than 220 yards in a game and tallying 96 yards in one of the games he missed.

The same was true of his freshman season, when he rushed for 111 yards or more in three of the last four games.

This would indicate that WVU would be wise to start using him more frequently in the running game as the season progresses.

Also hidden in the stats is the fact that the coaches are living up to their promise of passing more this year than last, as he has thrown 16 more passes this season but that has produced 27 fewer yards than last year through five games. And while does have nine TD passes this year to six last year, five of them came in the Villanova opener.

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