Bowl games are big business, there are millions of dollars as well as reputations at stake every December and January. The Liberty Bowl is no different. The Mountaineers have just finished off an impressive turnaround from last season’s 4-8 record to finish 7-5 and bowl eligible. Texas A&M on the other hand has been steadily growing their program under head coach Kevin Sumlin and although this season was considered a down season they still finished 7-5 after finishing 9-4 in 2013.
While on the field the Mountaineers and the Aggies have never met there is no lack of familiarity between the coaching staffs. In ’08 and ’09 WVU head coach Dana Holgorsen was an offensive coordinator at the University of Houston under then head coach Kevin Sumlin. Sumlin is, of course, the current head coach of the Aggies. But the familiarity does not stop there. Former WVU quarterbacks coach under Holgorsen, Jake Spavital, is the current offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Texas A&M. Jake was also a grad assistant in ’10 at Oklahoma St where Dana was an offensive coordinator. Spavital was also with Holgorsen at Houston in ’09.
Despite the seriousness of game preparation Spavital and Holgorsen have started the Twitter war. It all started with Tony Caridi:
Got’em. @JakeSpavital upon learning Texas A&M would play WVU called @Holgorsendana and said “I know all your signals” and hung up.
— TonyCaridi (@TonyCaridi) December 8, 2014
To which Dana replied:
.@TonyCaridi I am not worried, I taught @JakeSpavital all of his signals
— Dana Holgorsen (@Holgorsendana) December 9, 2014
Which led to Jake chiming in with:
.@Holgorsendana Game On, Old Sport. pic.twitter.com/8MkzLO1iHX
— Jake Spavital (@JakeSpavital) December 9, 2014
Which garnered a reply from Dana with:
.@JakeSpavital pic.twitter.com/YinnkCVJgZ
— Dana Holgorsen (@Holgorsendana) December 9, 2014
And finally one last tweet by Jake:
.@Holgorsendana pic.twitter.com/quchs8csTj
— Jake Spavital (@JakeSpavital) December 9, 2014
Personally I would give the edge to Dana in this Twitter battle to this point.