re: I hate that the non conference win streak was snapped

That was never a big deal for me. I only remember a few of the non-conference wins being somewhat meaningful. We had the 2011 Oregon win, the 2007 VT beatdown, and pulling our asses out of the fire against Wisconsin. Otherwise, the rest were nothing major. The TCU win turned out to be against a bad TCU team (they were 4-8 that year). WVU was rebuilding when we beat them up in Morgantown. The same goes with both Washington victories. For the most part, the vast majority of those victories were against rent-a-wins or middling (or worse) teams from the major conferences.