MORGANTOWN — As Bill Stewart stood in the locker room that October night in 2008, he looked around him and he saw a West Virginia University team biting hard on defeat, a 17-14 overtime loss to Colorado leaving them with a Rocky Mountain low.
Yet Stewart knew something had changed for his team, something for the better.
It was almost déjà vu all over again, so to speak, for Stewart realized that he’d been there before.
That would have been the night in 2003 in a hot, sticky Orange Bowl locker room. He was an assistant on a West Virginia team that had just dropped a heart-breaking decision to the Miami Hurricanes, 24-22, as memorable a game as he had ever experienced.
It was the game the Mountaineers seemed to have won when Quincy Wilson took a swing pass from Rasheed Marshall and made one of the most miraculous runs in WVU history for a late touchdown. It was the game when the Mountaineers put Miami in a fourth-and-14 hole as the clock ticked off its final seconds, only to have tight end Kellen Winslow make an impossible catch for a first down, setting up a game-winning field goal.
WVU stood at 1-4 after that game, the season seemingly destroyed, yet Stewart understood that something good had happened with this team, that a light had gone on in the attic and that a fire had been stoked in the furnace.
The Mountaineers went on to win their next seven games, earning a Gator Bowl bid.
Yes, as Stewart stood in the WVU locker room last October, his team’s record at 1-2, that overtime loss weighing heavily on everyone’s shoulders, he truly believed that the same thing had happened.
“I know we gelled after that game. I was in the locker room. It reminded me so much of 2003 down in Miami. I was in that locker room and there was a lot of hurt,” he said.
The West Virginia defense had been exposed through the first two games of last season against Villanova and East Carolina, and Colorado had come out and scored the first two times it had the ball.
It was the make-or-break moment that the Mountaineers needed, a time when they discovered each other.
Colorado would not score again until an overtime field goal. Marshall would score but three points the next week, Rutgers 17 the week after that, Syracuse just six in the following game and Auburn 17 the next week.
The defense had pushed its backs away from the wall and come to life, beginning right there against Colorado.
Now the Mountaineers face Colorado again and do so with the defense again questioning itself. While winning two games, the defense was only so-so and in its previous game it had been stung for 41 points by Auburn.
True, the defense was put into some difficult situations with six turnovers by the offense, but it couldn’t come up with the stops when it needed them.
Once again, the defense needs to make a stand, and safety Robert Sands believes it is ready to do so.
“I think this game is going to be a pretty good one,” Sands said. “We’re looking for a goose egg. We’re gonna shut ’em out. At least, that’s what I want us to do.”
That is tall talk, but with middle linebacker Reed Williams returning to the lineup, just as he did last year against Colorado, there is reason to expect a huge improvement.
“Not to take anything away from the players who played that position last week, but Reed is just different in the middle,” Sands said. “He’s Kobe and Nield’s Shaq. With them both in together, there’s not anything we can’t do.”
Neild is nose guard Chris Neild, who works so well with Williams.
What’s more, WVU figures to have linebacker J.T. Thomas for the entire game this time. A year ago he suffered an early — and scary — concussion against Colorado after hitting 245-pound fullback Maurice Cantrell and missed most of the game.
“It’s not like I’m going to go out and look for the guy right away on the sideline,” Thomas said. “I just want to get out there and play a whole game.”
Cantrell won’t be there to have anything to say about that. He’s graduated.
o o o o o o
There is a press conference today in Yankee Stadium to announce a new bowl that will be played at Yankee Stadium. It’s expected that it will involve a Big East team against a Big 12 team, beginning in 2010. The game is expected to be played between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
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