A Year of Transition
December 07, 2008 04:16 PM | General
December 7, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Relief, frustration and a little irritation were just some of the emotions Bill Stewart revealed late Saturday evening after his West Virginia team held on to defeat USF, 13-7, to complete the regular season with an 8-4 record.
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| Bill Stewart had the second best regular season record of first-year coaches leading BCS conference programs this season.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
“It’s not fun in your first year when you take over,” Stewart said.
Stewart had the very difficult assignment of taking over a football program with an established quarterback, some veteran offensive players and an offensive system tailor-made for the previous coaching regime. Consequently, anything short of duplicating last year’s performance was going to be considered a failure in the eyes of some.
“I’m very proud of this football team and I’m very proud of this football staff,” Stewart said. “It may not have been the greatest of years in some people’s standards and I’m not a big stat guy, but maybe some of you guys with a little time on your hands can look up and see what happens during transition years.”
We did.
Stewart’s 8-4 record matches Houston Nutt (Ole Miss) and Bo Pelini (Nebraska) for the second best record among first-year coaches at BCS conference schools this year. Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson had the best mark at 9-3. Johnson is taking the Yellow Jackets to the Chic-fil-A Bowl.
Stewart, Johnson, Nutt and Pelini are the only new coaches taking BCS programs to bowl games in 2008.
Five of the seven first-year coaches at BCS programs with losing records this year actually fared worse than their predecessors.
“I’m very proud of this staff, this team and this administration in this transition year,” Stewart said.
Ironically, West Virginia’s Big East record this season is exactly the same as last year’s 5-2 mark that was good enough to share the conference title and earn the school its second BCS bowl appearance in three years.
It is also the same league record the Mountaineers posted in 2006 when they had to beat Rutgers in triple overtime during the final game of the regular season to avoid going to the Texas Bowl.
Come up with four points here against Cincinnati or five points there at Pitt, and West Virginia is looking at an entirely different scenario in 2008.
“It’s been a tough week. I don’t like losing and I’ve been sick in my guts since last Friday,” Stewart said.
Stewart was unhappy with a couple of players in particular, so he decided to send both of them a message on Saturday against South Florida.
“You get 17 yards on 12 carries against Pittsburgh - I can get anyone in the dorm to do that,” Stewart said.
“When you don’t make plays then you sit down and watch someone else make plays and I thought Jock Sanders did a nice job in the first quarter. Noel (Devine) is not in anyone’s doghouse, nor is (Robert) Sands,” Stewart said. “It’s about competition and sending two young players a message - crank it up, get it going; we compete on a daily basis here.”
Stewart delivered even more messages after the USF game.
“I’m not pleased with 8-4. I’m a helluva lot tougher than that,” he said. “I’m pleased when it’s 12-0, but there will still be things that I don’t like what I see.
“Just because I make some positive remarks from time to time – to try to keep this ship afloat, that does not mean Bill Stewart is a happy camper,” he explained. “Tonight we had to reach down into our guts to win a football game.”
For the third time in the last four weeks the game was put on the defense’s shoulders. In two of them, Cincinnati and Pitt, the Mountaineers came up short.
Last night, West Virginia held on to defeat a team that had seemingly owned them the previous two years by doing to USF exactly what the Bulls did to the Mountaineers: force critical turnovers. USF had four cracks inside West Virginia’s red zone and came away with only seven points.
Sound similar? That is precisely what happened to West Virginia during last year’s 21-13 loss at South Florida that turned the city of Tampa upside down. The same thing happened to West Virginia in Morgantown in 2006.
This time, Sidney Glover produced two turnovers: one, a forced fumble that he also recovered and another, an interception in the end zone right before the half that led to a Mountaineer field goal.
“The interception was huge and the forced fumble was big and we kept them off the scoreboard,” Stewart said.
Statistically, the Mountaineers didn’t field a dominant defense this year. They rank in the middle of the pack in the Big East in total yards allowed and several other categories. Where they have excelled is where it matters most – in the red zone and forcing turnovers. WVU is ranked first in the Big East in both of those areas.
Stewart is ecstatic with the defense’s performance considering his staff has had to work in several new starters this year and was playing a third-string middle linebacker on Saturday against USF.
“We had eight new starters on defense this year. Those two seniors starting now (Mortty Ivy and Ellis Lankster) really stepped up for us,” Stewart said.
On the other side of the ball, West Virginia’s offense once again couldn’t put the game away when it needed to. With less than six minutes remaining and needing a yard to move the sticks and keep the clock running, Devine was thrown for a five-yard loss. It is those tough yards that Stewart says his team has got to make if it hopes to reclaim the Big East title.
“It was a good year and now it’s over and we’re going to roll up our sleeves and start knuckling,” he said. “We need a tougher football team at West Virginia University. We’re going to get tougher.
“There is a method to my madness. It will show in a year or two.”
