MORGANTOWN — If there was outrage — and certainly throughout the Puskar Center at Mountaineer Field there was — when the Big 12’s preseason media poll picked the Mountaineers 14th in the conference, all should be far more stable within the football bunker now.

The Big 12 finally got something right, at least as far as West Virginia went.

Maybe it’s because they let the coaches do the polling for the All-Big 12 Awards and teams in the postseason rather than the media, but as far as their analysis of West Virginia’s most deserving players they got things correct.

Center Zach Frazier of Fairmont Senior High was named to the Big 12 Conference Offensive first team and cornerback Beanie Bishop to the Defensive first team.

Frazier was a second-team selection last year while earning All-America honors and Bishop, a transfer from Minnesota, was the conference leader in passes broken up and defended.

Fair enough for the Mountaineers.

They had some others who were knocking on the door and who probably got some votes. Neal Brown, for example, would have voted for his left tackle Wyatt Milum if he could have voted for his own players, and he wound up on the second team.

Wrong? Maybe, but those of us who do not study game film for a living just have to take the word of those who do, which is the coaches.

It was Milum, out of Spring Valley High in West Virginia, and Kole Taylor, the LSU transfer who, as the season progressed, became everything WVU had wanted at the tight end a little bit more, earning second team honors.

Taylor led WVU with 33 catches for 411 yards and four touchdowns and becomes the first tight end since All-American Mark Raugh in 1981 to finish the regular season as the Mountaineers’ leading pass catcher.

And there was a whole boxcar full of Mountaineers on the honorable mention list, many of who had breakout seasons, like quarterback Garrett Greene, but in a league where Oklahoma is exiting with Dillon Gabriel at the controls and making first team and where Texas is leaving with defensive lineman T’Vondre Sweat earning Defensive Player of the Year honors, there isn’t room for those who don’t tower over the competition consistently all year.

Still, WVU did place defensive back Aubrey Burks, linebacker Ben Cutter, running back CJ Donaldson Jr. returner Preston Fox, Greene, linebacker Lee Kpogba, defensive lineman Mike Lockhart, placekicker Michael Hayes, punter Ollie Straw, defensive linemen Sean Martin and Edward Vesterinen and offensive linemen Doug Nester, Tomas Rimac and Brandon Yates on the honorable mention list.

That meant that Frazier, Milum, Nester, Rimac and Yates all were cited on the offensive line, which only adds to the thought that this may have developed into the nation’s best this year … or close to it.

And it was especially gratifying to see that late blooming freshman running back Jaheim White was able to catch enough of the coaches’ eyes to land himself on honorable mention. It should carry an asterisk as a reminder that next year he may wind up battling Oklahoma State’s running back Ollie Gordon, should he return, for the Offensive Player of the Year crown he won this season.

There is one oversight in the awards day and that is that they do not pick plays of the year by position, for certainly WVU would have a number of cases to make for such honors.

Oddly, two of them would belong to Frazier, the center, and it isn’t often your center’s plays showing up on ESPN’s Top Ten plays.

But against BYU on the goal, Frazier got himself into his man and drove him clear back into the middle of the end zone before disposing of him on his back, as impressive a display of strength and technique as you will see out of a lineman.

And then on the play last weekend when Frazier was injured, a play that is playing non-stop on social media today, where in the game-winning drive he left his position at center to hustle downfield as wide receiver Hudson Clement was fighting for a first down, got to him and literally carried him forward before behind driven to the ground where he seemed to break a bone in his lower leg which required surgery.

But at the moment, the play was not over for Frazier. WVU could not afford a 10-second runoff of the clock had he required assistance leaving the field, so Frazier immediately struggled halfway onto his feet, crawling a few strides toward the bench before getting up and, clearly in severe pain, hopped to the sideline.

That may well have won the game as much as Greene’s dramatic winning pass to White.

While there were some cries in West Virginia that Neal Brown should have won Coach of the Year, having taken a team picked 14th and put together an 8-4 record to finish fifth in the conference, that honor went to Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy, who plays Texas this Saturday for the Big 12 Championship.

There was one other item of note for West Virginia. The Offensive Freshman of the Year, while not going to Jaheim White, went to Iowa State quarterback Rocco Becht, son of the WVU star tight end Anthony Becht, a long-time NFL star who went on to become a television commentator and a coach.