The West Virginia offensive coordinator is taking much of the heat for his unit's failure to generate enough offense to complement a defense that has done its job, the result of which has been two straight low-scoring losses to underdogs Syracuse and Connecticut.

And that's fine with Mullen. He'll take the heat. If the offense isn't producing, it's his fault. In that context, it doesn't matter if the criticism is of the play calls, the execution, the turnovers or whatever is the flavor of the day. He is still in the buck-stops-here position of being in charge of that offense, so its deficiencies are his responsibility no matter the cause.

"It's my job,'' Mullen said. "And whatever the problems are, I have to correct them.''

Know this, though: Mullen is not ready to cave in to those who believe that it is some vast schematic flaw that has doomed the West Virginia offense in recent weeks. He remains adamant that what the Mountaineers are doing is right. They just have to learn to do it better.

Take his oft-criticized play calling, for instance.

"You'd be surprised how many times I've been booed for what was a systematic great play call,'' Mullen said. "It should have hit. Somebody missed a block or the back missed the hole or somebody dropped the ball. And it's also surprising how many times I've been cheered for a terrible play call when someone makes a great play and goes for a touchdown.

"Nobody sees that with the naked eye. So what we have to make sure is we're putting our kids in a successful situation.''

That's why, as West Virginia heads into Saturday's noon home game with Cincinnati following an off week, there appear to be no dramatic changes on the horizon. Following WVU's 16-13 overtime loss at Connecticut two weeks ago, Mullen seemed as despondent as he possibly could have been. If ever it seemed as if it was time to make some major changes, that night in East Hartford was it.

But an off week spent analyzing and evaluating the offense proved to Mullen only what he already knew - that while there is certainly room to improve things and fine-tune performances, the system isn't the problem.

"It wasn't Connecticut,'' Mullen said. "We didn't have a problem moving the ball against Connecticut. We had no problem moving the ball against Connecticut. I don't mean that disrespectfully, but it's just true. That's the frustrating part.''

Indeed, the facts bear that out to a point. It's more than just the total yards, which can sometimes be a misnomer. West Virginia had 414 yards of total offense and a season-high 254 rushing against UConn. But the Mountaineers have had five games of 400-plus yards this season and that hasn't changed the fact that scoring has often been a problem. Yards don't always matter.

A better illustration of Mullen's point that West Virginia had no trouble moving the ball against the Huskies might be the drive chart, which shows that in 13 offensive possessions the Mountaineers had just one three-and-out. That's 12 of 13 drives in which WVU moved the ball enough to gain at least one first down. Of those 12, one resulted in a touchdown, two in field goals and the other nine ended with two fumbles, a turnover on downs (because of a fumble) and six punts.

Take a closer look, though.

One of the field goals came after a Noel Devine touchdown was nullified by a chop block. Two punts and one turnover came after the offense had moved the ball to or inside the UConn 30. The final drive ended on first-and-goal at the 1 on Ryan Clarke's fumble in overtime.

"When you look at it on the whole you can't turn the ball over and jump offsides and have a chop-block penalty and a holding call or six men on the line when we do a motion that we've done for a very long time,'' Mullen said. "It doesn't matter how well you're moving the ball if you stop yourself like that.''

Still, it can also be argued that West Virginia's coaches and/or offensive game plan are to blame for why those drives eventually bogged down. After all, of those 12 possessions that managed to advance the ball enough for at least one first down, nine failed to produce points. One can blame that on turnovers and penalties to a point, but none of WVU's six possessions that ended in punts included a penalty of any consequence. The offense simply stopped moving the ball.

But there is also another way in which those turnovers and penalties that did disrupt or stop drives played an even bigger role in the grand scheme of the offense's lack of production - momentum. It seems that every time West Virginia gets something good going, instead of finishing and turning that momentum in the right direction, it either disrupts the offense's continuity and/or gives all the momentum to the other side.

The Syracuse game is a perfect example. Having just scored on an impressive drive to take a 14-10 lead and with the ball inside the Syracuse 10 only moments later, Geno Smith threw an interception in the end zone. Instead of a 21-10 lead, a few minutes later it was 14-13.

And against UConn, two of the first three drives produced points and a 10-0 lead, and the possession that didn't result in points still got the ball to the UConn 30. But after that, penalties and turnovers killed any momentum.

"We get a touchdown against Syracuse and make it 21-10 and all of a sudden it's last year's Syracuse game,'' Mullen said, referring to a 34-13 WVU rout. "And at Connecticut we pretty much score twice in overtime and it's all wiped out by penalties and turnovers. We're just killing ourselves.''

So rather than jump to make drastic changes, Mullen is simply trying to put his players in a position to do things better, not turn the ball over and reinforce that even in those last two losses the offense was doing the right things, just not doing them right.

"You've got to find something good about it because everyone else is going to find the bad,'' Mullen said. "You can jump on that train and just grind them into the ground and beat them up, or you can find the good in it and see if we can't get on a four-game roll here at the end.''

Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.