Campus Connection
December 09, 2008 11:43 AM | General
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| Bill Stewart |
There is no football game this weekend but that doesn’t mean the West Virginia coaching staff won’t be busy. Mountaineer coach Bill Stewart has a full week ahead of him while the team wraps up final examinations and does some weight lifting on their own.
Today, Stewart will be in Pittsburgh for the WPIAL Awards Luncheon. Afterward, he will be back in Morgantown to sit down with his two coordinators to begin going over a preliminary game plan for North Carolina. Both Jeff Casteel and Jeff Mullen were out on the road on Sunday and Monday getting some of their recruiting work out of the way before returning to the office to begin studying North Carolina.
“We’ll start to break down the film as it comes and start to develop a game plan,” Stewart said.
On Thursday, Stewart flies down to Orlando, Fla., with punter Pat McAfee and Sports Information Director Mike Montoro for the ESPN Home Depot College Football Awards Show. McAfee is one of three finalists for the Ray Guy Award given to college football’s top punter.
The team will resume practicing on Friday and Saturday, taking Sunday off before getting into the heavy work the following week.
“On Friday we are also having a big recruiting weekend,” Stewart said.
The team will have its annual banquet at the Waterfront Hotel on Sunday, Dec. 14, at 4 pm. The schedule calls for practices on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning before the team is excused on the 18th for the holiday.
Players will reconvene in Charlotte on Monday, Dec. 22, to begin final preparations for Saturday’s Meineke Car Care Bowl game against North Carolina.
MSNsportsNET.com will provide daily updates from Charlotte beginning on Wednesday, Dec. 23.
Briefly:
The tricky part is that West Virginia only has 21 days between games instead of the full month it has enjoyed in previous years. That means injured players will have less time to get ready for the bowl game.
“In 1979, I went down there as a part-time guy. You get part-time pay and you work full-time hours,” Stewart said. “I went down there for $2,850 and when I was there Coach Crum put it up to $4,495 – he gave me out-of-state tuition."
Nationally, North Carolina may be known as more of a basketball school but don’t tell that to Bill Stewart.
“Let me tell you about that basketball mentality. In 1979 we beat Michigan in the Gator Bowl. Check out 1980, 1981 and 1982 when they beat Arkansas and some of the teams they beat going 11-1 under Coach Dick Crum,” Stewart said. “Maybe some folks call it a basketball school, all I know is down there on Tobacco Road they play pretty good football.
“They’ve won a lot of football games down there,” Stewart continued. “Is there a basketball mentality? I guess so to the common sports person. But don’t think they don’t have great football players, wow.”
North Carolina’s second-leading tackler Mark Pascal was advised by the UNC medical staff to give up football after suffering a spinal cord injury in the loss to N.C. State.
Of the tickets sold so far, approximately 45 percent of those purchases have been made online through WVUGAME.com.
The only tickets remaining through the Mountaineer Ticket Office are upper level seats, according to Wells.
The Meinke Car Care Bowl has had two sellouts in its history – in 2004 when North Carolina lost to Boston College and the inaugural game in 2002 when West Virginia lost to Virginia. More than 73,000 showed up for that game.
Both choices were made with a sagging economy and ticket sales in mind.
The Gator opted for Clemson instead of Florida State, Boston College and North Carolina despite the fact that all three schools had better overall records. BC, which lost in the ACC championship game for the second straight year, went from a potential spot in the Orange Bowl all the way down to the Music City Bowl.
The Meineke Car Care Bowl took North Carolina with the sixth selection.
Schools unhappy with their slotting are suggesting the conference review its bowl selection process at its annual league meetings this spring.
