By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — We take you back to last Thursday night. Halftime. West Virginia University 14, Colorado 10.
It had been an ugly, ugly game for the Mountaineers. They were dropping the football as often as a social climber drops names.
Bill Stewart is normally a calm human being, one who likes to teach the game of football, not shove it down your throat.
But he was mad.
“I was ripping into them,” Stewart said.
When he finished and was off to the side, Noel Devine approached him.
“Coach, give me the rock. Give me the ball,” Devine said to Stewart. “Keep calm. Everyone knows we’re goofing up.”
Stewart is a smart enough coach to know when the time is to listen to his players, especially when that player has the talent that Devine has.
He gave him the ball in the second half, especially during a 14-play, 69-yard drive that broke open the game.
Eight times he gave it Devine on that drive. And he kept giving it to him until Devine had rung up 220 yards on 22 carries, the yardage being a career high.
While others were fumbling the ball, Devine was cherishing it.
While others were trying too hard, straining, as Stewart likes to say, he was staying within himself.
It was almost as if he finally had become the runner that everyone knew he could be, one who took what was given him.
In previous years, it was almost as if each play had to be a highlight reel or Devine wasn’t satisfied. When 5 or 6 yards would do, he want 56 yards.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say I’ve changed,” Devine said. “I understand the game and the offense more and things have slowed down. Back then, I just wanted to score every time I got the ball. I understand in reality that’s not going to happen — but I still think that way.”
He has impressed Stewart with his progress.
“He’s become a very trusted member of our football community,” Stewart said. “By that I mean in tough situations he wants the ball. In team situations (in practice), he wins every sprint. In leadership skills, he’s pushed himself and others. In practice, every ball he takes in an inside drill or a team drill or a skeleton drill, he sprints to the end zone as hard as he can and everyone looks around like, ‘Wow, this guy is on a mission.’
“That’s something a coach cannot manufacture. That has to come from within.”
It is all part of a side of Devine that has emerged this year, a more vocal Devine, a player who has come out of a shell that a rough upbringing had put him into.
The result is that Devine has become the Big East’s leading rusher, on a pace to gain more than 1,600 yards this season. He is averaging 7.4 yards a carry and has six touchdowns, two more than he scored all of last season.
He has balanced off what threatened to be a pass-happy West Virginia offense, giving the Mountaineers exactly the threat they need when the field is spread and running lanes begin to open, something the team did not ever really get last year when the threat of the run from Patrick White and Devine was so great that teams continued to crowd the line of scrimmage.
NOTES: The award winners for the Colorado game were offensive champion, Noel Devine, special mention, Ryan Clarke; defensive champion, Chris Neild and Reed Williams, special mention, Julian Miller; special teams champion, Scott Kozlowski; offensive scout champion, Terrell Morning; defensive scout champion, Tyler Anderson.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
