Published: November 08, 2009 11:39 pm      

HERTZEL COLUMN - For now, WVU just an average Big East team

MORGANTOWN — The conversation was being carried on in the car while driving toward Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium on Saturday morning, just as it was being heard in cars all across the state of West Virginia as they headed to the football Mecca that is Morgantown.

Hoppy Kercheval's point was, quite simply, that West Virginia had fallen into being a middle-of-the-pack Big East team, which was being taken by his companions as something of a failing of faith on Kercheval’s part.

It is difficult to believe any person sound of mind and breathing earth’s own air could argue with such an assessment, but it would not be very good radio if the point weren’t argued at all and it wouldn’t be the old gold and blue allegiance between radio station and its bread and butter client, WVU, if they just let that pass as the gospel.

Now, if a rational — if somewhat warped — mind can present a point of view on that matter today, it really can be settled quite logically.

1. The Big East football conference has eight teams. No argument.

2. Cincinnati and Pittsburgh are the top two teams, both ranked, both unbeaten in conference play. No argument.

3. Louisville and Syracuse are the bottom two teams, neither having won a Big East game. No argument.

4. The four teams in between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh at the top and Louisville and Syracuse at the bottom would be the middle of the pack in the Big East — West Virginia, South Florida, Rutgers and Connecticut.

Do I hear any argument?

You didn’t need to see South Florida dismantle West Virginia a week ago or Louisville battle them to the wire on Saturday to figure out the Mountaineers can be ranked nowhere but in the middle of the Big East Conference … at least until they do something to prove differently.

Last year, you might recall, they lost two Big East games. One was to Cincinnati, one was to Pittsburgh.

Even the year before that, a year when the Mountaineers were dreaming of a national championship, they managed to lose two Big East games, one to Pitt, the other to South Florida, which arguably could be said is ahead of WVU considering that it has beaten the Mountaineers two of the last three seasons.

Far more pressing a question than where West Virginia ranks in its conference is why it ranks there, for therein lies the true rub.

If we all can agree that beating Pitt two years ago would have altered Mountaineer history unimaginably, with Rich Rodriguez not only staying but building upon the foundation that he had laid, then we can agree that the success of the

Mountaineers on the football field has trended downward since.

As someone who bleeds often, but neither gold nor blue, it is my humble opinion that while the football program at WVU was damaged by the loss to Pitt, it was not damaged by the departure of Rodriguez, for there are far more important things in the world than being a Top 10 football program.

What did transpire, however, was a knee-jerk reaction — perhaps the emphasis on the jerk — from those involved that all Rodriguez was bad, for the changeover produced a less-than-subtle in change in attitude.

Lost in the process has been an intangible known as Mountaineer football.

It is difficult to put a finger on what that might be, calling it a swagger is not exactly correct, but it is close enough to be a starting point.

For whatever reason, there’s something about the land and the attitude of the people of West Virginia, about the coal dust they’ve breathed and the rough beauty of the land, that begs for an in-your-face, rough-and-tumble brand of football.

West Virginia doesn’t need to be playing Wake Forest football. It doesn’t need 30 passes a game and tricky reverses. It doesn’t need five plays that are listed as incomplete, plus 3 yards, minus 1 yard, 7 yards and 2 yards for the flair of a breakaway here and there.

West Virginia football is Owen Schmitt breaking a face mask. Or his own face. It’s Patrick White aching from the follicles on the top of head to the cuticles on the toes of his feet, yet putting the team on his back and carrying it to victory.

It’s not a way of playing the game, it’s a way of living the game.

Trade motion for emotion, that’s where it’s at.

The Mountaineers have two games in a row now where they must get back the hard edge, impose their will and have the opponent limping off the field. They have Cincinnati and Pittsburgh back-to-back, and they aren’t going to win the game by outcoaching the other side.

It will come down simply to the survival of the hittingest.

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