MORGANTOWN — Dana Holgorsen gave Steelers coach Mike Tomlin a tip of the visor when discussing West Virginia’s game-winning 2-point conversion attempt at Texas.
Over the course of the last four seasons, the Steelers have been more aggressive in attempting 2-point conversions than any other football team — particularly in the 2015 and ’16 seasons. Holgorsen mentioned that he has visited Tomlin to pick his brain about a variety of 2-point plays.
“The Steelers go for 2 a lot. We’ve taken some of that,” Holgorsen said during Monday’s Big 12 coaches teleconference. “We have 2-point play competitions a lot. That’s helped us. It’s a combination of scheming things and a gut feeling for how you’re doing at the goal line and what they’re doing at the goal line.”
Holgorsen’s decision to go for 2 and the win rather than play for overtime has been the talk of the college football world since it happened.
Even though Texas coach Tom Herman called two timeouts, including after a completion to David Sills that appeared to be the clincher, Holgorsen never changed his play, which provided quarterback Will Grier with four different options.
“I knew he was gonna call timeout. I thought about running a dummy play, but didn’t want to get caught if he didn’t pull the trigger,” Holgorsen said. “That specific play has a lot of options and our quarterback sees the field as good as anyone in the country. If you give No. 7 options, he’s going to make the right one the majority of the time.”
After fielding several questions about the conversion, Holgorsen made it clear he’s ready to move on.
“We got rid of this yesterday and have moved on to TCU,” he said. “That’s what the offseason is for — to take everything that happened and reflect on it.”
