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MORGANTOWN -- Three weeks ago they were ready to throw a parade down High Street in Morgantown for defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley and his West Virginia University defenders.
They had led the Mountaineers through a surprising four-game win streak that had placed this team predicted to go nowhere to the cusp of the nation's Top 25 rankings, allowing just 57 points through the four victories.
Three had come against Power 5 opponents and in those three games they had given up just 40 points.
Strike up the band.
Then they went to Houston and, playing without two of their best defenders -- safety Aubrey Burks and linebacker Trey Lathan -- they lost on a last-second Hail Mary pass, setting them off on the two-game losing streak they bring into Saturday's noon matchup on FS1 having allowed 73 points combined in the losses.
The losses were difficult ones to swallow, the kind that sting. In the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma State loss, head coach Neal Brown said "this one stings even more than last week."
Lesley, however, doesn't rank losses one way or the other.
"A loss stings. I don't really categorize them one more than another. They are all the same to me. You either win or you lose. How you lose (doesn't matter), they're all different," he said.
The defensive coordinator isn't so much despondent as he is challenged. He believes his defense can bounce back. They are going to have to as UCF averages 34.1 points and 500 yards a game.
"I'm as hopeful as I've been the whole time …. and here's why. I've seen them play at their best. It's not like we forgot how to do that," he said.
Now, the memories linger but the reality of the moment is eating into those memories.
"There's things I wish hadn't happened and were different, but they're not," Lesley continued.
He has offered a message to his defense this week.
"You have to be at your best when your best is required," he told them. "That's for 60 minutes. It's not for 53:48, not for 59 minutes, not for 59:59 (a not-so-veiled reference to the Houston Hail Mary loss). That's what it is. There is no margin for error in our league."
Amazingly, the Hail Mary touchdown to end that Houston game might not have been as bad as the fourth-quarter performance that buried them last Saturday against Oklahoma State, giving up four touchdowns, three of those to running back Ollie Cooper, who rushed for 149 yards in the fourth quarter alone.
"The mistakes down the stretch, whether it's … somebody said something about fatigue. Listen, fatigue is part of the game. You can't make those mistakes because good teams and especially good players make you pay.
"You can't have penalties. You can't give them things. You just have to play better. There were some good things we did Saturday, but you've got to play four quarters, not three and a half."
Lesley stresses that this is an unbreakable rule and there are no exceptions, no excuses.
"There's no perfect defensive call. There's no game that's ever been played perfect by any player. That's the nature of the game and I tell the guys that all the time. But there's simple things, no matter if you are a true freshman or a fifth-year senior that you train for and you teach. No matter what the situation is, if you are on play 82 that you're in there, you have to play to your best when it's required.
"And that's hard to do. That may not be fair for some of the guys, but I don't think fair is part of the deal in this game."