Published: August 18, 2008 10:19 am      

Poll spot gives Stewart boost

CHARLESTON — Tell me, say, back five years ago, you really expected this:

In 2008, the preseason Associated Press college football poll would appear, and among West Virginia native coaches, Bill Stewart would have a team ranked one spot higher than Tommy Bowden's club.

Or, Stewart would be 16 spots higher than Nick Saban? And Rich Rodriguez's team wouldn't even be in the poll?

Then, who could have figured, say, five years ago, that Saban would be at Alabama, that Rodriguez would be at Michigan, that Bowden wouldn't have been run off by now by the perennial Clemson Tiger raggers ... and Stewart would be guiding one of the nation's top 10 teams in his home state.

Isn't major college football great?

For years at West Virginia, Rodriguez said he wanted a Top 25 program, not just a Top 25 team. Well, he built a Top 10 program.

Then he bolted to Ann Arbor - where the storied Wolverines (an all-time high of 752 appearances in the weekly AP poll since it debuted in 1936) aren't in the preseason rankings for the first time since 1985.

Now, it's Stewart's job to keep the Mountaineers at such lofty status. No pressure there, huh?

When the AP poll was revealed Saturday, Stewart was the only new head coach with a team in the Top 25. Rodriguez (with Michigan seventh among "others receiving votes") was the only other new coach in the top 35.

It's rare that a top 10 program has a coaching change like WVU experienced. It's ever more rare for a foot soldier like Stewart to have a chance at the job, much less get it. Right off the bat, he faces a challenge Rodriguez didn't have.

WVU plays at high-altitude Colorado and then faces preseason No. 10 Auburn in Morgantown in late October. In Rodriguez's seven seasons at his alma mater, his teams never faced two non-conference foes so testy in the same season.

(In 2003, WVU had Wisconsin at home and visited Maryland. OK, that's close.)

The first AP poll also revealed something else. The voters obviously have respect for the not-long-ago stepchild Big East Conference.

For the second year, three Big East teams were ranked in the preseason poll. Besides No. 8 West Virginia, 19th-ranked USF made its first preseason poll appearance in history. Pitt, at No. 25, is in the preseason poll for the first time since 2005.

Cincinnati, which was in the final (post-bowl) poll for the first time in history last season, was five spots below the top 25 - and just ahead of Florida State and Michigan, a notion once unthinkable.

Speaking of the unexpected, when WVU opens Aug. 30 against Villanova, the Mountaineers will be playing their 32nd straight game as a ranked team. WVU has been in 42 consecutive AP polls (and only Texas, USC, LSU, Ohio State and Florida have longer active streaks).

What's more impressive is this: When college football cognoscenti think of the game's top programs, they now include the Mountaineers.

That's because WVU has been in the top 10 of four of the last five preseason polls. In the past three seasons, only LSU, Ohio State, USC and WVU have finished in the top 10 each season.

West Virginia has been ranked in the top 10 in 29 of the last 36 AP polls (dating to the final 2005 season poll, after a Sugar Bowl triumph over Georgia) and hasn't been outside the top 15 since early November of 2005. The 'Eers also were in 13 of 16 polls in '04, as high as No. 6.

Getting there under Rodriguez was one challenge. Staying there under Stewart is another.

However, if there's one thing we do know in college football, it's harder to gain a reputation than to lose one.

It may not be how you start but how you finish, but starting from somewhere rather than nowhere always helps - not to mention having an entire offensive line back with Pat White at quarterback.