Published: November 19, 2008 12:14 am      

COLUMN: Stewart, Kragthorpe in same boat

MORGANTOWN — On Saturday afternoon in Louisville, they will stand on opposite sides of Papa John Cardinals’ Stadium, opponents in a game of football that is crucial not only to both their seasons but to both their careers.

On that day West Virginia University’s Bill Stewart and Louisville’s Steve Kragthorpe will be enemies, Stewart needing a victory to keep his Big East championship and BCS bowl bid hopes alive, Kragthorpe needing one perhaps to retain his job.

Yet, despite the wedge that has been driven between them by the scheduling of this game and the events that have transpired leading up to it, they are brothers in a strange sort of way, each trying to shake off the huge shadow of the past that hovers over them.

Both are relatively new at their jobs, Stewart in his first year at West Virginia, Kragthorpe in his second at Louisville, tough enough tasks as it is but tougher yet because they have replaced a pair of highly successful coaches.

While their mission falls short of replacing legends, it is fair to say they are replacing coaches who were on their way to legendary status. Rich Rodriguez had built the Mountaineers into a national power, winning 60 and losing only 26 — eight of them in his first season, and winning or sharing four Big East titles and going to five bowls.

Bobby Petrino had done almost as well at Louisville, ushering the Cardinals into the Big East and winning 41 of 50 games in the process, including an Orange Bowl.

Under ordinary circumstances, Stewart’s and Kragthorpe’s jobs would have been almost impossible, but both Rodriguez and Petrino saw to it that they left town not as heroes but as villains, making it easier on the new coaches.

Petrino had flirted with every head coaching job that came open short of coaching the Bad News Bears before leaving for the Atlanta Falcons, while Rodriguez, on the heels of a disastrous loss to rival Pitt when on the verge of playing for the national championship, jumped ship for Michigan in as ugly a divorce as any coach has ever had.

Because of that, the coaching jobs at West Virginia and Louisville were just difficult, not as impossible as it was for those who have replaced legends in the past.

That list is endless. There was Earle Bruce, who replaced Woody Hayes at Ohio State and never could satisfy the fans even though Hayes had left in the midst of a fire storm over punching a Clemson player on the sideline.

“Replacing anybody like Woody Hayes is tough. Not because of Woody, but because of others. Some people never let go,” Bruce noted.

Bruce was relatively unknown when he replaced Hayes. Ray Perkins was an Alabama hero as a player when he replaced Bear Bryant, his 32-15-1 record with the Tide never enough to satisfy that school’s appetite for victory.

Dan Devine made a career of replacing legends, first replacing Ara Parseghian at Notre Dame and then Vince Lombardi with the Green Bay Packers. Devine was a coach who bordered upon greatness, but always paled in comparison to those before him.

“I’d be about 10 times better as a coach today than I was in 1972,” Devine said long after he left Green Bay. “I probably should have followed Lombardi's pattern a little more, the way he emphasized blocking and tackling. I thought that football at that level wasn’t the same as college football. It is. If you can coach Notre Dame, you can coach the Packers, and if you can coach the Packers, you can coach Notre Dame.”

In some regards, those words echo today throughout West Virginia, for Stewart surprised everyone when he came on and made major offensive changes when most people expected that as a Rodriguez assistant and with Rodriguez’s talent on hand he would follow a similar plan.

While the bad taste left behind by Rodriguez and his abrasive coaching style made Stewart seem a pleasant departure with his breezy, proud to wear the blue and old gold manner, his decision to depart from the offense Rodriguez had initiated has made it more difficult for him.

“We’re all going to be compared in the arena,” Stewart said on Tuesday afternoon, speaking of both Kragthorpe and himself. “You have to give us a little time, see what we’re doing, see how our recruiting goes. The toughest thing is to keep winning.

“There have been a lot of coaches who have taken over winning programs like ours. Some won. Some lost. I’m not overjoyed being 6-3, but I’m OK with it. They’ll judge us four or five years down the road.”

Kragthorpe may not have that much time. His program has taken a large downturn and he knows it. There are “Fire Steve Kragthorpe Web sites out there, and his athletic director Tom Jurich thought he had to give him a vote of confidence.

“There’s no need to point any fingers,” Jurich said yesterday. “If you want to point any fingers, point them all at me. I hired Steve, and I hired that whole staff.”

Kragthorpe is simply riding out the wave.

“I don't feel the expectation level of our fans has been unrealistic at all,” Kragthorpe said recently. “I think they should expect us to be where they want us to be, and that’s the way it should be. I would be the same way if I were a fan of Louisville football.”

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