MORGANTOWN — In a way, West Virginia University’s Bill Stewart is presented with an interesting coaching situation when he travels to Syracuse to face the Orange.
Syracuse, you see, is a team with a two-tiered defense, so to speak.
On the one hand, the Orange have proven themselves too susceptible to the forward pass, so much so that they possess far and away the worst pass defense in the Big East Conference and among the five most porous pass defenses in the nation.
They have been scorched for 290 yards per game and 13 touchdowns in five games.
Seeing that, one would figure that you simply turn Jarrett Brown and his powerful arm loose on Saturday, flinging the ball to Jock Sanders, Alric Arnett, Bradley Starks and even the strangely absent Wes Lyons.
One would expect that filling the Carrier Dome, which on Saturday becomes Ernie Davis Legends Field, with footballs would produce enough points to win easily.
But there is another school of thought under which Stewart was brought up.
Back in the day, coaches often would open games against an opponent with a weakness by attacking their strength, which in Syracuse’s case is a rush defense that is fourth in the conference and gives up 91 yards a game, about 200 less yards than through the air.
While this theory would seem to counterproductive, when one considers that Stewart coaches the third leading rusher in the nation in Noel Devine, a runner of rare elusiveness who is coming off the finest game of his career with 220 yards on 22 carries against Colorado, that is an alternative that well could rock Syracuse.
Stewart knows there were some pretty good coaches who would take that approach.
“Back when I was coming up you had coaches like Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi who felt that way,” Stewart said. “You beat them at their game and you break their will and their heart.”
Beat a team at what it does well and it has nothing to fall back onto. It has no Plan B.
But Stewart won’t take that approach this week.
“We are not going to change. I don’t care if we’re playing Liberty, Colorado or Syracuse. We are going to throw deep and we’re going to stretch the field vertically,” Stewart said. “I hope their defensive staff gets into a fight and says we aren’t blitzing and are going to stay back.
“Then we’re going to throw the ball out in the flat. When No. 7 gets that ball, I want people to spread out and let him do his thing. We are what we are, and I like what we’re doing. When people play the Mountaineers, I want them to know they have to defend 100 yards of turf.”
No. 7, of course, is Devine, who still is his No. 1 weapon, a touchdown waiting to happen any time the ball is put in his hands.
Stewart learned that up close and personal last year.
You might recall that Syracuse put up a spectacular battle against WVU last year. Quarterback Patrick White had missed the game with an injury and Jarrett Brown’s throwing arm was bothering him so that he could not throw effectively.
Run or pass, WVU couldn’t move the ball and led but 10-6 late in the fourth quarter. To make matters worse, they were backed up at their own 8, facing a third-down play.
That’s when Stewart gave Devine the ball on a simple, safe sweep around left end.
“We were fighting for our life. I had the punt team called up and he took it 92 yards to the house,” Stewart recalled.
See, the idea is that when you have a playmaker, you make sure he is given the opportunity to make plays.
Stewart understands that’s what Syracuse is going to try to do to his defense, turning quarterback Greg Paulus loose in the air. Paulus is the former Duke basketball player who is a former Gatorade National Football Player of the Year from the Syracuse area who returned home to use up his final year of eligibility.
And while Paulus was picked off five times last week by South Florida, Stewart knows that he’ll be flinging hard again.
“How do you stop a playmaker?” Stewart said, when asked about his approach to Paulus.
He paused briefly, for effect, then answered his own question.
“You don’t,” he said. “You don’t stop Michael Jordan. You try to stop those guys around him. You don’t stop Ted Williams. You try to get out the guys hitting ahead of him and behind him. Paulus is good. I wish he wasn’t playing Saturday.”
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
HERTZEL COLUMN: Stewart has decision to make against Syracuse
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