MORGANTOWN — So how, you are wondering, did Dana Holgorsen spend the night after signing his new six-year contract that will pay him upwards of $20 million as West Virginia University’s football coach?

“Some fine dining in the back,” he answered when asked, smiling slightly and tipping his head toward the “fine dining” area of the Puskar Center where the team meals are served. “Then I watched a bunch of film.”

So much for big times and a big celebration.

“As I mentioned yesterday, you guys can make a big deal out of it, but it’s not going to change what I do on a day-to-day basis,” he said.

So it is with a football coach, a profession where the participants wear blinders to the real world and live within the confines of a make-believe world built upon the labor of professional football players being paid not in the cash that they bank but in dreams.

Like so many coaches, no matter what their contract situation, Holgorsen certainly didn’t become any more open about what is going on in building his football team with his new contract.

In fact, when asked if there were two or three things that he felt he had to accomplish before the opening game out of camp, he began his answer with this:

“That’s a tough question.”

So tough he never answered it.

Oh, he pointed out that there is offense and defense and special teams.

“I’m looking at our team over here, and there’s a whole bunch of things we have to do offensively. You look at it defensively, and there’s a whole bunch of things you have to do. So if you are looking at three things, you’re leaving out 97,” he said.

“There’s a whole bunch of things. We don’t have charts with checkmarks. There are specific things that may not be accomplished until game nine or 10. We are in the process of just trying to get better every day.”

That is not to say that there aren’t things that are pleasing him.

Take the attitude of the team.

Eight practices into camp, they are geared up and ready to go.

“There was a lot of energy and competition tonight,” he said. “We were out there for a good two hours and 45 minutes or close to it. It became more competitive, and there was more energy as the practice went on.

“That means that these guys are excited about being out there, excited about playing. Obviously that is a good thing, but there were also bad things. That’s what camp is all about, playing a lot of bodies. We’re not trying to narrow anything down at this point, so we’ll be getting a lot of bodies in there, which means a lot of mistakes throughout camp. We will evaluate the film tonight as coaches and come back and do a whole bunch of teaching tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon, before we get in practice No. 9 and No. 10.”

Energy, of course, is important to making everything else go in camp

“We coach it; that’s what they pay us to do,” he said, although a bit more is expected from a coach who signed a six-year deal for $20-some million. “That’s something we believe in, and we’ve talked a lot about body language, a lot about confidence, a lot about effort, energy and excitement. I truly believe you can coach that stuff like you can coach where to line up on a specific play. Ultimately, the guys have to buy into it and feel good about it. We coach it and steer them in the right direction. They need to feel good about doing it, and I saw a lot of that out there today.”

One area that has him pleased is the offensive line.

“With the o-line, you knew what you were getting with (Joey) Madsen, (Jeff) Braun and (Josh) Jenkins; those guys have played a lot of football around here and solidified the inside,” he said. “Pat Eger had his problems last year, but is a returning starter. He is playing better, and we have the ability to move him down to guard. Curtis Feigt looks like a different guy; we’d feel much more comfortable putting him in. (Quinton) Spain looks like a different guy; we’d feel much more comfortable putting him in.

“We feel really good about them; we’re trying to find some more guards. We’ve identified some guys with depth; we’re just trying to find a few more. Obviously, we have a couple of receivers who can play, but we need five more, and I’m not sure who they will be. I feel good about the o-line. Those guys are playing well right now.”

Email Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com. Follow on Twitter @bhertzel.