MORGANTOWN — Too often we lose sight of the real job football college coaches have in front of them, paying far too much attention whether are running their offense from the spread or the wing-T, whether they use an odd or even front on defense, whether they blitz or play straight zone.
The Xs and the Os are all nice to talk about, but in the end, there isn’t a football coach who doesn’t know an X from an O and what to do with his Os when your Xs are lined up in a certain way.
No, the football coaches get all the Os that appear on their contracts, be it five of them for hundreds of thousands of dollars or six of them for millions, for the personal challenges they face, for they must be far more group psychologist than strategist if they hope to succeed.
A coach deals with a long, long season where there are tremendous highs and devastating lows, both as a team and among individuals. In truth, it is far, far easier to be Urban Meyer at Florida, even though every day you are expected to win and win big, than it is say to be Doug Marrone at Syracuse, where you have to find incentives in losing situations.
When his all-Big East wide receiver Mike Williams decided to quit the football team this week, it was a defeat for Marrone far more difficult to understand than any game that he had failed to win. You can take losing games, losing football players is something entirely different.
Each day as a football coach presents a different challenge, each player a different challenge, fighting everything from a bad day with a girlfriend to class work that he just can’t get to a nagging muscle pull he hasn’t told the trainer about to a receiver breaking loose behind him for a touchdown.
As West Virginia readies itself for this weekend’s game with Louisville, Bill Stewart’s challenge isn’t one involving schemes or coaching philosophies. No one will argue that West Virginia isn’t the superior team as their 6-2 record would indicate.
Instead, the challenge comes in bringing his team together after a loss at South Florida, a loss where his star running back was stuffed, where a cornerback was beaten, when egos were shattered and dreams dismantled.
Four games remain, “the stretch run” being the way Stewart put it, and he says it is the time “when you find out how tough a football team you have.”
And how will Stewart go about bringing his team together in the wake of their first conference loss?
“These are great guys. All you have to do is look them dead in the eye and tell them truth,” Stewart said. “I tell the young men what’s expected dnd then go to work.”
What is expected from here on out?
“You jut your jaw, bow your back, shut your mouth and go play as hard as you can play.” Stewart said. “If you do that in life, be it in your daily work, your job, your marriage or whatever phase of your life, you will be OK.”
The first eight games of the season are gone. The record is 6-2 and it’s chiseled in stone.
“Those eight games are gone,” Stewart said.
The psychological healing began even before the medical treatment that comes to the bumps and bruises that go with big time college football began.
It began in the locker room, with the scrap heap that was a 30-19 defeat laying their right in the middle of the room.
“I made them look each other in the eye after the loss,” Stewart said. “I’m a history teacher. I believe you learn from history. I thought back to the loss to Miami when Quincy [Wilson] made that great run, to the loss last year at Colorado.”
Those were low points in WVU history that became high points, moments of defeat that brought the team together, that backed it into a corner from where it had to fight its way out.
Those were moments like the loss at South Florida.
“Those are the right times to grab your brother’s hand and take an oath and say we can over like the experts say we will or we can play Mountaineer football,” Stewart said.
That is what he is looking for, a rebound, a team doesn’t wallow in its own misery, that doesn’t look past Louisville to Cincinnati and to Pitt and Rutgers.
Some say Louisville is a trap game. Stewart won’t buy that.
“Let me tell you, when you are in the Big East, they are all trap games. You let your guard down and you’re going to get beat.”
And sometimes, even if you are ready to play, you will get beat.
“We didn’t let our guard down Friday night,” Stewart said. “We got ‘outathleted’ at a couple of positions.”
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
Coaching not always about Xs and Os
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