MORGANTOWN — The news that came out on Monday evening was not fit to print for The New York Times and, to be quite honest, it didn’t cause a so much as ripple on Rush Limbaugh’s political pond, yet in some corners of the land it was quite significant.
The Paul “Bear” Bryant committee of the American Heart Association released its 2009 watch list of 20 coaches who are candidates for the Bryant Award as college football’s Coach of the Year.
There were, of course, the upper echelon of the coaching profession on the list – Urban Myer from No. 1 Florida and Mack Brown from Texas and Nick Saban of Alabama by way of Marion County. Yeah, Pete Carroll of USC was there, as was Kirk Ferenz of Iowa and Les Miles from LSU, to say nothing of the granddaddy of all current coaches – maybe literally – Joe Paterno from Penn State.
It is pretty snappy company for anyone to keep, let alone that old country boy from New Martinsville, Bill Stewart, who has muscled his way onto the list with a 6-1 start.
Those who recall the tornado of controversy that spun around Stewart when he was named to replace Rich Rodriguez, after he bolted for the obscurity of coaching at some school named Michigan where, after two years, he remains off the Bryant watch list, can understand the magnitude of Stewart’s inclusion among the top 20 coaches of the season.
Stewart, serving as interim coach, had just won the Fiesta Bowl over Oklahoma in Phoenix, Ariz., in a dizzying display of offense when the powers that be gathered late in the night to discuss the coaching vacancy.
Most everyone figured Stewart was simply babysitting the team until Terry Bowden or Jimbo Fisher or some other name coach or top assistant was anointed Rodriguez’s successor. But the more they saw of the way the team responded to Stewart in the wake of Rodriguez’s exit, the more they saw the way the team played, the more they … well, celebrated the victory into the early morning hours, the more Stewart looked like the man.
By morning, he got the job and there was a strong outcry from many alumni, headed by Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick, calling it shame, predicting the end of the Golden Age of West Virginia football.
A year ago, having lost consensus All-American Steve Slaton, fullback Owen Schmitt and wide receiver Darius Reynaud to the NFL, having put in a new system and assembled a new coaching staff, Stewart saw his team lose four games.
“I still know how we were supposed to come out blazing last year with Owen and Stevie and Darius gone and eight starters on defense (gone). Anyone else loses eight starters and there’s a law suit. It was tough. I just did my best, jutted my jaw, bent my back and did what I was raised to do as a little kid, shut my mouth and go to work,” Stewart said.
A slim one-point victory over North Carolina in the Meinecke Car Care Bowl kept it from being a five-loss season and there were those predicting disaster this year as Patrick White left for the NFL.
But don’t look now, for WVU is a few turnovers in the Auburn loss from being unbeaten at this point in the season and it is being noticed.
Stewart takes his inclusion on the Bryant watch list gracefully.
“They got the wrong Bill Stewart,” he joked when it was brought up at his weekly press conference. “There must be a Stewart coaching out West somewhere.”
That drew a laugh, and it indicated that Stewart really didn’t want to be talking himself up at the moment.
But you could not pass over this, and so he was pressed.
“I will tell you what that is,” Stewart said. “It’s a real tribute to our staff. I think we have the best sideline adjustment people in the game.”
That, of course, has been shown a couple of times this year, most recently Saturday when UConn came out and did absolutely nothing that was expected of them.
“When Coach (Jeff) Mullen said he had to throw away the game plan, he meant it literally,” Stewart said. “We have 20 minutes at halftime. By the time you go to the bathroom, get some water, you have about 14 minutes. We had to change everything in that time.”%
And they did, salvaging an important game.
But it was more than Stewart or his assistant coaches that went into that or that has gone into putting Stewart on the Bryant watch list.
“Our staff never quit believing, but most importantly, our players rally around each other and they believe in our coaches. That is the bottom line. The watch list is nothing but a testament to the best staff that I have ever been around and to the great group of young men.”
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
HERTZEL COLUMN - Stewart on Bryant Award list
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