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Houston announces Dana Holgorsen hire in most Dana Holgorsen way imaginable

January 02, 2019

Dana Holgorsen and West Virginia always seemed like the perfect match. From his hilarious visor-rocking look despite having no hair on the top of his head to his love of Red Bull and his penchant for saying whatever the hell was on his mind, Holgo and Morgantown were made for each other.

Unfortunately, Holgorsen could never quite put the team over the top, even with NFL-bound quarterback Will Grier under center the last two seasons. In eight years Holgorsen led the Mountaineers to just two 10 win seasons and posted a 2-5 record in bowl games. This past year, with some slightly higher expectations than usual, West Virginia started 8-1, but fell flat on their face in the final month, losing all three of their remaining games.

The ugly ending to the year led to one of the more peculiar moves of the college football off-season, as it was announced Holgorsen was bolting for Houston, a school that just fired second-year head coach Major Applewhite after a 70-14 shellacking at the hands of Army. Holgorsen has some history at Houston, spending two years there as the offensive coordinator in 2008 and 2009, but still, why leave the Big 12 for a Group of five school?

According to Yahoo's Pete Thamel, the move was a matter of if, not when, as Holgorsen had "run his course" at West Virginia, and Houston had been targeting Holgorsen for a few years now. The announcement was made official on Wednesday, and it couldn't have been more on brand for Holgorsen. With his patented visor look and a Red Bull in hand, he proudly introduced himself as the new head coach of the Cougars:

For those who don't get the reference, Holgorsen asked his team "you want to go win the game? let's go win the game" before the Mountaineers hit on a game-winning two-point conversion in November against Texas. I'll choose to remember that as Holgo's lasting image from his time at West Virginia, which when we look back probably won't age well considering he won less than eight games in four of eight years there. But he turned that into a five-year, $20 million contract at Houston, according to SB Nation, which makes him the highest-paid coach ever at a non-power conference school. Power moves only from Dana.