Jan. 6-13 Blog
January 06, 2008 03:45 PM | General
We’re changing things up a little bit. For the past four years Campus Connection has kind of been like a weekly blog full of tidbits, notes, commentary, quasi-opinion and weak stabs at humor that have sometimes hit the mark and at other times completely missed. Well, to keep up with the Jones', we’ve decided to turn Campus Connection into a daily blog. If we miss a day then you know we’re struggling.
Hope you enjoy it ...
Football Staff Taking Shape
Posted By John Antonik: January 12, 2008 (3:02 pm)
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| Doc Holliday has spent the last three years coaching at the University of Florida.
University of Florida photo |
Bill Stewart first showed he could mobilize a wounded football team. Then he showed he could organize a football staff - most of whom were making plans to move on. Now he is showing that he can attract some of the very best coaches in the country.
On Friday Stewart announced the hiring of Steve Dunlap, Dave Lockwood and Chris Beatty. Today he revealed that Doc Holliday is returning to Morgantown.
What Stewart is assembling is a group of coaches with a vast array of experience and talent. Steve Dunlap has coordinated defenses at West Virginia, Syracuse, North Carolina State and Marshall and brings a technical mind to the defensive meeting room. He joins what Stewart considers a coaching star in the making in defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel.
Dave Lockwood has coached on both sides of the football and was Minnesota’s defensive coordinator for two seasons before spending last year at Kentucky coaching the Wildcat secondary. Lockwood also spent a year with Bob Davie at Notre Dame in 2001 and is known as an outstanding recruiter.
Chris Beatty has just one year of Division I-A experience at Northern Illinois, but was one of the most successful high school coaches in Virginia and his coaching expertise and contacts in the Virginia Beach area helped him land an offensive coordinator’s job at Hampton University three years ago.
The hiring of Beatty signals Stewart’s intention of having a strong West Virginia presence in the Tidewater area.
Doc Holliday is as good as they come when you talk about recruiting the state of Florida. He started cold there in the early 1980s as a young West Virginia assistant and has worked the state hard for the past 25 years. Holliday not only knows every coach you need to know in the state but he also coached a good number of them during his days at West Virginia. The University of Florida’s strong South Florida presence today is primarily Holliday’s doing.
“People sometimes label you because you are an expert in one particular field,” Stewart said. “For instance in the case of Doc he is such a great recruiter and everyone knows that. However, this man has coached at the I-A level at three outstanding programs on both sides of the ball. That is what really excites me. Not only are we bringing an outstanding recruiter but we’re also bringing in a heck of a football coach that really knows the game.”
When you scan the biographies of the four coaches hired so far their big-time football associations are evident: Florida, North Carolina State, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Kentucky, Minnesota and so forth. Add that to Stewart’s experiences at North Carolina and Arizona State and you’ve got five of the six BCS conferences covered in terms of experiences.
Stewart is showing that having good, sound, football minds in the meeting room is just as important to him as having energetic and charismatic coaches on the recruiting trail.
“I want as many knowledgeable people to help steer this football program in the right direction,” Stewart says.
According to Stewart, the plan now is to get those recently on board prepared to go out and start selling West Virginia University. In the case of Holliday, Dunlap and Lockwood that will be easy because they already know a great deal about the school having played and coached here previously. Beatty will get caught up quickly.
“Once we get the particulars, the cars and the cell phones and the personnel stuff done then we are going to hit the ground running,” Stewart said. “If all goes as planned Doc and I will be in a home together on the 14th.”
Having Holliday in the associate head coach/director of recruiting role also enables Stewart the freedom of concentrating on completing his coaching staff while recruiting is on going.
“He will be the trouble shooter for us as we go into these homes immediately until I can hire the rest of the staff,” Stewart said, adding that the process to complete the staff may take some time.
“The process is going to be ongoing for the final three members of the staff. I have no comments on that because we’re still in the process of visiting, talking and sharing ideas about the three positions. I’m excited with the men we have here right now I’m going to lean on them quite heavily.
“As for the rest of the staff we’re not under the gun,” Stewart explained. “My main priority was the defensive side of the ball although we will not turn down any athlete – ever. We will get on the road just as soon as possible and go attack these recruiting battles.”
WVU 7th in Directors' Cup Standings
Posted By John Antonik: January 10, 2008 (3:21 pm)
West Virginia University finished the fall ranked seventh in the U.S. Sports Academy Directors’ Cup standings. The Mountaineers finished the fall with 273.5 points after football finished ranked sixth, women’s soccer advanced to the Elite Eight, women’s cross country finished ninth at nationals and men’s soccer advancing to the Sweet 16.
It is the highest West Virginia has ever placed in the Directors’ Cup standings after the fall.
California is first with 370 points, followed by USC, Stanford, Oregon, Penn State and Wake Forest.
Connecticut, Texas and Florida make up the top 10.
Cal has the overall No. 1 spot after seeing its water polo team win the national title, women’s volleyball place third, men’s cross country finish 16th, and men’s and women’s soccer both ranked in the top 25.
Other Big East schools in the Directors’ Cup standings: Notre Dame (21st), Louisville (30th), Georgetown (57th), South Florida (59th), Providence (82nd), St. John’s (83rd) and Cincinnati (89th).
Schedule Strength
Posted By John Antonik: January 9, 2008 (4:32 pm)
Twelve teams that finished ranked in the Top 25 also had schedules among the 25 toughest in the country, including No. 1 LSU, No. 2 Georgia and No. 4 Missouri.
LSU’s schedule was ranked 14th based on opponent winning percentage with teams the Tigers faced going 91-63. Georgia had the seventh toughest schedule with its opponents posting a combined 79-52 record.
Missouri’s schedule was 19th with its opponents having a combined 82-60 record.
Seven teams in the final Top 25 poll had schedules ranked 25th to 50th, including No. 6 West Virginia whose opponents had a combined 79-63 record, putting the Mountaineers’ schedule at 34th.
Below West Virginia among Top 25 teams in schedule strength were Ohio State and Clemson (tied for 38th), Boston College (40th), Texas (46th), Arizona State (49th) and Wisconsin (50th).
Top 25 teams with schedules ranked lower than 50th include Cincinnati (53rd), BYU (61st), Texas Tech (66th), Kansas (72nd), USC (73rd) and Hawaii (111th).
The Trojans, who many believe should have been in the national championship game against LSU, played a schedule that recorded a combined 71-75 record in 2007.
Some Food for Thought:
Former WVU quarterback Chad Johnston brought up a very interesting point in an email he sent me earlier today that I wanted to share with you.
Like many of us, Chad has been pondering the meaning of the analogy that has been frequently used referring to Bill Stewart as the house painter that is taking over the WVU football program from its architect Rich Rodriguez.
So Chad poses this question: “I know Michelangelo is the painter of the Sistine Chapel. Who was the architect?”
Good question, indeed.
Coach Stew a Coachman
Posted By John Antonik: January 8, 2008 (2:14 pm)
Being a New Martinsville, W.Va., native, naturally I was pleased when Bill Stewart was announced as West Virginia University’s 32nd football coach in a news conference at The Scottsdale Resort a day after the Mountaineers’ resounding victory over Oklahoma in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.
The job he did rallying a wounded team and a fractured coaching staff was nothing short of miraculous. His qualifications – 33 years in the coaching business and associations that span all levels of the sport – have been well documented.
However, what really sealed it for me was when I learned the other day that Coach Stew was also a member of the Coachmen Club. For those of you not familiar with New Martinsville and Magnolia High School, the Coachmen Club and the Young Men’s Union (YMU) were once the school’s two most prestigious associations.
The kids in the YMU wore fancy blue and gold jackets, went Christmas caroling, raised money for good causes and spent their club time pondering the human condition. They were the sons of dentists, doctors and lawyers, grew up in Steelton, and generally had bright futures. Think Greg Marmalard, Douglas Neidermeyer, Chip Diller and the guys from Omega.
The Coachmen? We were the kids from downtown who lived on the other side of the highway. We also raised money – for slick new red jackets to wear around school. Think Bluto, Otter, Pinto, Boon, D-Day and the gang from Delta. Of course we had nicknames, too, like Ant-man, Su-man, Skins, Gern Blanston, Chuckie Dog, Shady Grady, Sugar and so forth. The things we considered funny when we were 18 we still laugh at today some 20 years later.
I was a rare four-year member of the Coachmen Club and the only thing I can recall with any clarity was the club being disbanded for one year because our advisor got mad when it leaked out that he didn’t want a certain kid to join and the votes were rigged to keep him out (it was our first hard lesson in Democracy in action).
So we spent that entire year in study hall during club period hanging out with Napoleon, Pedro, Kip and the rest of the gang.
Now I can’t speak for Coach Stew’s association with the Coachmen Club because he predates my membership by many years - and I am certain the Coachmen then were much more service oriented than we were - but the simple fact that he was a Coachman makes him No. 1 in my book.
Sadly, after googling Magnolia High School’s web site to find out more about the Coachmen and the YMU, I noticed the two are no longer included among the school’s clubs and organizations.
Perhaps both were morphed into the Bowling Club, the Thespians, Good Morning Magnolia, Yearbook, Computer Technicians, Spanish Honor Society or Peer Tutoring.
Come to think of it, I didn’t see the Glee Club on that list either.
Letting the Foxes Back in the Chicken Coop
Posted By John Antonik: January 7, 2008 (3:27 pm)
If there is one thing we’ve learned about college athletics it is that we don’t learn much from college athletics.
Consider SMU which 22 years ago was given the death penalty for cash payments provided by one prominent booster totaling $61,000 to 21 football players. The result of the scandal was the cancellation of the 1987 football season, the cancellation of all home football games in 1988, a two-year ban on bowl games, the elimination of 55 scholarships over four years and the reduction of four full-time assistant coaches.
Today the school is preparing to announce at news conference this afternoon that June Jones has agreed to a five-year deal worth $2 million per year to coach the Mustangs. I think it is important to point out that SMU is a member of Conference USA and plays in a 32,000-seat football stadium. SMU has had just two winning seasons since the NCAA dropped the A-bomb on the program.
The 55-year-old Jones went 75-41 with Hawaii and led the Rainbows to their first-ever BCS bowl appearance against Georgia in this year's Sugar Bowl.
According to ESPN sources, the funding for Jones’ hefty contract will come through donor support. SMU athletic director Steve Orsini has reportedly sold as many as 20 boosters on the concept of donating as much as $100,000 per year for five years.
It looks like SMU is letting the foxes back into the chicken coop.
Fiesta Bowl Notes
Posted By John Antonik: January 6, 2008 (3:46 pm)
Some leftover notes from West Virginia’s Tostitos Fiesta Bowl victory over Oklahoma on Jan. 2, 2008:
The last time West Virginia won three bowl games in a row spanned 27 years from 1922 to 1949 when the Mountaineers won the 1922 East-West Bowl, the 1938 Sun Bowl and the 1949 Sun Bowl.
This year, Gonzales was at it again by catching a game-sealing 79-yard fourth-quarter TD pass to help the Mountaineers to a 48-28 win over Oklahoma. Gonzales’ career bowl stats show two catches for 136 yards and two touchdowns. He is averaging 68 yards per catch.
Also noticeably absent from the offensive game plan against Oklahoma were bubble screens.
