Published: March 22, 2009 03:51 am      

COLUMN: WVU football back in spotlight after hoops losses

MORGANTOWN — It is late Saturday afternoon, a moment in time where the world seems to sit in suspended animation.

Within 24 hours, basketball season came to an end, unless you happen to be alive in your NCAA bracket, which really hasn’t been all that tough to date.

But the Mountaineers — be they of the male or female gender — have seen their seasons come crashing down upon them.

The men, on Friday, played with neither passion nor energy and were literally swept aside by a hungry team from Dayton. It was a dismal ending to a season that was becoming as enjoyable as any those John Beilein teams with Kevin Pittsnogle and Mike Gansey gave us.

The next afternoon, the West Virginia women’s team, an underdog you could really root for, considering the misfortune they had undergone with injury and illness throughout the year, went bipolar on us.

They played a near perfect first half against St. Bonaventure on the road, hitting 63 percent of their field goals and 77.8 percent of their 3-point shots while building a 42-28 lead, then somehow managed to make just two field goals in the second half as they lost, 68-63.

Two field goals!

That broke down to 9 percent shooting. OK, 9.5 percent shooting, to be precise, something they certainly weren’t.

There are halftime games played by school kids who hit better than 9.5 percent of their field goals, let alone scholarship players on a Division I team.

But, hey, with eight players and so many injuries, it’s probably just as well as it ended when and how it did, letting them know that there’s a whole lot of work to do before next season.

Let us all take solace in the fact that between Bob Huggins and Mike Carey we may have witnessed the best coaching jobs done in the United States this year, and that includes Connecticut which had No. 1 seeds in both men’s and women’s basketball.

However, one suspects, both Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma would admit that it didn’t take coaching geniuses to reach those heights with the talent they had on hand.

So, now what?

To steal a familiar phrase … “Are you ready for some football?”

On Tuesday, coach Bill Stewart’s second edition football team gathers at Milan Puskar Stadium for its first workout of the spring, and while there are no wins or losses to come out of this exercise, there are two major projects that will lead to either wins or losses come the fall.

The first will be to restructure the offensive line and the second to turn WVU into a secondary that can play man-to-man defense well enough to allow defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel to unleash a number of new blitz packages.

While neither is as sexy as playing into the Sweet 16 of the NCAA basketball tournament, it’s all we’re left with now.

Considering that the offensive line probably was the most underachieving group on the Mountaineers last year, that they have to find four new starters is probably a good thing. Gone are tackle Ryan Stanchek, guards Greg Isdaner and Jake Figner and center Mike Dent.

That means that Eric Jobe, who took over at center after Dent left, will continue forward with Selvish Capers while Josh Jenkins will move in at guard, Don Barclay at tackle and Mike Timmerman at the other guard.

“We’re going to develop an offensive line,” Stewart promised recently.

It wasn’t a “We’re going to try to develop an offensive line” or an “I hope we’ll develop an offensive line.”

He was serious about and don’t underestimate the importance of it. To begin with, it has to be a pass-blocking line because that was a weakness last year and Jarrett Brown is not Patrick White when it comes to escapability.

And then there were those short-yardage frustrations that came not so much from not having a big back but more from having little backs with no big holes to run through.

Defensively, the Mountaineers are looking to turn corner Brandon Hogan and whomever wins Ellis Lankster’s spot into one-on-one corners.

“We have to get better at man coverage, so we can blitz, because those quarterbacks need to get hit right in the back of the ear lobe,” Stewart said. “We have to get better so we can blitz him and then hit him in the mouth, in case he gets away from us.”

Translate that any way you’d like, but it comes down to a more pressing, physical pass rush made possible by covering defenders.

“There is not a better man-coverage teacher, corner or secondary coach in the country than David Lockwood. He and Steve Dunlap, with their knowledge, will teach these young people,” Stewart said.

If those two things are all that is accomplished this spring, it will be a successful spring.

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