MORGANTOWN — West Virginia football coach Bill Stewart stopped short of saying the hit on quarterback Jarrett Brown that left him unconscious on the field and with a mild concussion was illegal, but he left no doubt he believed it was.
West Virginia had run four offensive plays when Brown pulled the football down and scrambled for a 13-yard gain. At the end of the run a pair of Marshall players converged from his left and right.
Both struck Brown helmet to helmet, the first blow coming from defensive back Ashton Hall just a millisecond ahead of the second blow. The two combined had to rattle Brown’s brain and the quarterback went down like a boxer who had just walked into a George Foreman right.
The rules forbid helmet-to-helmet contact, yet the officials did not throw a flag, and Stewart wouldn’t bite when asked if he felt the hit was legal during his Sunday press briefing.
“I’m going to have to plead the fifth. That is something that is going to be discussed in other venues. But thank you for asking that, because now the point has been made,” Stewart said.
There was no update on Brown or his availability next week when Connecticut comes to Morgantown to face WVU in its Homecoming game. Kickoff is noon Saturday.
“I don’t know anything about Jarrett (Brown) except that we met with Dave Kerns this morning, and we all seem to think that he will be day-to-day. I don’t know if he will play this weekend or not. We will have to see. He won’t practice today, and we’re just going out in helmets and vests. What’s that tell you? That’s not good,” Stewart said.
Stewart said that fullback Ryan Clarke, who missed the Marshall game with a pinched nerve in his neck, will be back next week and probably could have played on Saturday.
“Ryan Clarke should be back in full force. He could have played, but I don’t want to get a lad hurt when I don’t think we have to play him. Believe me, there were times when we wanted to play him yesterday,” Stewart said.
Defensive tackle Scooter Berry, who was legwhipped by teammate Reed Williams as he tried to come back from a shoulder injury, was the most serious casualty.
“I don’t know what is going to happen with him. Poor kid has just been hobbled this season. We’re going to have to wait and see,” Stewart said of Berry.
Stewart will spend this week getting Geno Smith ready to play, just in case Brown can’t go. He has a procedure he uses in situations like this one.
“This is what I do — I always go five plays with the first team, and three plays with the second. You have to get that in, at least,” Stewart said. “There are many days when we get more than that, because we go back and repeat. To me, you have to work them both. I will never split them, because they don’t play 50 percent of the time. We go five and three. That’s what I do, and that’s why our second team is capable of going in and playing.
“When I was with pro football in Canada, and the NFL does this too, they go 90 to 10 — first team 90 percent, second team 10 percent. You can’t coach college ball like that because these guys
get hurt. When the pro quarterbacks get hurt, you see what happens to them.
“I always have done it, and that’s how I’ll keep doing it. Other times I have done drills two-to-one, so the first team gets every two of three. I’m always going to give the first team the brunt of the work, but you have to get the second team too. That’s why our second team isn’t slugs when they go in there.”
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
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PHOTO BY TAMMY SHRIVER
Up in the air
No update on Brown’s status
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