Published: February 21, 2008 12:29 am            

COLUMN: Fun returning to WVU football

MORGANTOWN — On the day Bill Stewart was named to replace Rich Rodriguez as West Virginia’s football coach, there was an audible gasp from some quarters about the selection.

“Bill Stewart? The guy who had such a tough time at VMI?” they asked.

Sure, they admitted, he beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, but he did it with Rich Rodriguez’s players, Rich Rodriguez’s offense, Rich Rodriguez’s defense, even Rich Rodriguez’s assistants.

Whom could Stewart recruit? Whom could he hire? Wrong, wrong, wrong they shouted.

Little did they know at the time that this was not a case of midnight madness, brought about by the mix of euphoria of a BCS bowl victory and an evening of celebration. There was something that resembled a plan, a way to aid Stewart in what would be a rough transition, a way to prop him up in areas where he may be weak.

If he wasn’t the innovator Rodriguez was, it would not matter because the powers that be decided to surround Stewart with an experienced, successful group of assistants who would be paid far beyond what anyone would imagine to come in and create a coaching staff.

If anything is going to be different as this first season under Stewart dawns, it will not be noticeable in the offensive and defensive schemes. Instead, it will be noticeable around the Puskar Center, which is the football bunker, and in its meeting rooms, locker rooms and on the playing field.

This was going to be a coaching staff with input, a staff that shared its thoughts with the head coach, a staff that would create a program not run powered by four-letter words in practice and not run on fear.

“The other day I was about to walk in the meeting room with the coaches, and they were laughing and chuckling,” Stewart said.

Or, to put it as one member of the staff at the Puskar Center did last week, “It’s fun around here again.”

Make no doubt that Stewart is the head coach, the man in charge. Decisions are his to make, but they will not come without consultation and without discussion. What’s more, his time will be used to concentrate on football, not on smoking helmets, hostesses, videoboards or creating a Hall of Fame.

It is difficult, of course, to make any transition, blending together thoughts and voices from other systems, especially with men who have had success doing things their way. It is Stewart’s job, like a symphony’s conductor, to make music out of it.

“The system is intact,” he said, beginning to explain. “Take defense. We have the 3-3 stack. It kept us in games last year; it won games for us; it won the bowl game. Why change? And we have Jeff Casteel and Bill Kirelavich, who know it best.”

To add Steve Dunlap and David Lockwood is to take two pieces from WVU’s past who left and now return with knowledge of their own.

“We’re looking for wrinkles to add to the stack,” Stewart said.

The same goes on the offensive side, where new offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen comes over from Wake Forest, where he ran the spread offense and threw more than he ran, already adding a wrinkle on that side. And, as versatile as the Mountaineers were under Rodriguez, look for them to be even more so as Stewart is more of an I-formation devotee, as he showed as he stunned Oklahoma with his use of that offensive system in the bowl.

Toss in the veteran Doc Holliday, who has brought the Florida system of recruiting, which ain’t half bad, and you get the picture that you didn’t just get Stewart when you named a head coach at West Virginia.

“These are all brilliant guys,” said Stewart. “Many of them have been coordinators. Jeff Castell, he’s the best kept sec ... No, he’s not a secret anymore. Rivals.com screwed me up there when they named him the national assistant of the year.”

There is, of course, a danger when you put that kind of talent and ability in a room, egos come to play a role, and that is never good.

Stewart is certain it won’t happen with this staff.

“A lot of these guys are guys who wanted to come back to their roots, guys like Doc and Dunlap and Lockwood. There will be no egos,” Stewart said. “That’s where we go into the character of the man. I looked for character. I know these guys. They wanted to come home. They wanted stability in their lives.”

The other danger is one Stewart is well aware of, and that is the coaches coaching for the coaches instead of the players.

“We have to watch to make certain it’s not a coach’s notebook but a player’s notebook,” is the way Stewart put it. “It can look all pretty and the kids won’t know a darn thing.”

What the kids will know is that they’ll be treated better than they had been under Rodriguez, where they were constantly verbally abused, so much so that he wound up closing his practices to the media rather than to have them view what went on.

“Practices,” Stewart said, “won’t be like that. They’ll be open.”

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.

        

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