This morning we briefly touched on what a bad idea it was for West Virginia AD Oliver Luck to hire Dana Holgorsen as coach in waiting at West Virginia, thereby leaving Whittlin' Bill Stewart twisting in the wind for a full year. Now it appears that the West Virginia brain trust is trying to figure out who's been talking to them no good reporters about Holgor The Hungover's escapades, and potentially embellishing them.

Some sort of spy vs. spy episode has taken place in which allegations popped up in the media regarding Holgorsen's behavior as far back as a 2008 trip to Huntington, West Virginia (while Holgorsen was an assistant at Houston). The University has apparently decided that the allegations were unsubstantiated (which is of course different from "didn't happen" in some cases and synonymous with it in others). But somehow or another Athletic Department heavyweights became convinced that there was a leak in the USS Mountaineer, and have set about to find it. Oh, and they're putting head coach Bill Stewart's contract renegotiation on hold while they do that. Probably totally unrelated, right?

Lost in this talk of possible false allegations is the fact that Dana Holgorsen was recently very truthfully escorted out of the Mardi Gras Casino & Resort by police at 3 a.m. after being deemed uncooporative, and later apologized publicly for the incident. So while it may be inaccurate for someone to have told reporters that Holgorsen was repeatedly drunk and unruly and that his behavior was causing friction within the University administration, it would be wholly accurate to say that on at least one occasion Holgorsen's partying got the better of him to the point that casino officials thought it best he continue his evening elsewhere. That doesn't make him unfit to coach a football team, but it does mean that this story is more about shades of shades of character assassination than it might first appear.

In the interest of helping the powers that be in Morgantown get to the bottom of this shenanigan, I figured I would offer some potential leads in the search for the dreaded Holgor Libeler:

• Skeeter Barnes, night janitor. Often found in the closet huffing furniture polish then acting upon his resulting paranoia. Once tried to convince university PD that Steve Slaton was an evil gnome. Thinks Noel Devine is a platypus. A really shifty platypus.
• Cindy Flint, administrative assistant. May or may not be a Marshall sympathizer. We don't know for sure, but she wears green a lot and her husband looks kind of like a buffalo.
• Chet Sunderland, Vice President for Vice Presidential Affairs. Once took a second doughnut from the box Bill Stewart brought in for everyone to share before several other employees had gotten their first one. There's no limit to the depths that kind of unprincipled animal will fall to. Doesn't like John Denver.
• Bob Huggins, Head Basketball Coach. A man will do strange things to protect the stash of scotch he has in the hallway ficus tree.
• Keyser Soze. Perhaps the greatest trick West Virginia ever played was convincing us that it exists at all. Or perhaps Kevin Pittsnogle was the most innocuously named criminal mastermind ever.
• Johnny Majors, former Pitt coach and noted bon vivant. Does anyone seriously believe there's a limit to what this man would do to bring down West Virginia football? Of course not. He's like a folksy Bond villain.

Remember Mr. Luck, trust no one. Suspect everyone. The future of a Big East football program depends on you.