By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — Let us, for a moment, take a step back away from the West Virginia University football program, give the latest loss a chance to seep in. Let us take a few deep breaths, maybe even count slowly to 10.
We understand the dissatisfaction, for we were spoiled by the success, no matter how it was achieved, from the Rich Rodriguez era and, to be honest, with the inevitable departure of the talent he brought in, talent we now are watching play on Sundays, a decline in performance was inevitable, no matter who was hired.
Bill Stewart was the man, and at this moment, despite a 7-3 record, there are rumblings across the state of West Virginia that his hiring was a mistake, that it should be corrected at the conclusion of the current season.
Without taking sides in that discussion, we would instead like to simply offer an example where, in a similar situation, a school opted to stand behind its coach and things worked out grandly. We don’t have to take you far to see the outcome of that school’s patience with and faith in its coach.
It’s just 80 miles up I-79 North, where the University of Pittsburgh’s alumni and fans had a one-way ticket out of town for Dave Wannstedt, right up until he came to Morgantown and beat Rodriguez’s Mountaineers to ruin the dream of a national championship game in 2007.
Wannstedt, it will be recalled, took over a team that had gone 8-4 and played Utah in the Fiesta Bowl, an alumnus returning home to replace the unpopular Walt Harris. He came in with his own ideas, built out of years of coaching in the shadow of greatness, an assistant with Jimmy Johnson at the University of Miami and in Dallas with the Cowboys, an NFL coach with the Chicago Bears and Miami Dolphins.
He believed in his philosophies and stuck to them when he went 5-6 and 6-6 in his first two seasons at Pitt, turning the faithful unfaithful.
“I was with the Dolphins and, to be honest with you, in four years we won 10 and a half games a year and they were ready to run you out of town if you didn’t win a Super Bowl,” Wannstedt recalled. “After the first couple of years in Pittsburgh, everyone wanted it to happen faster. We were trying to build from the ground up. The seniors this year were the first recruiting class I brought in.”
The situation was getting shaky for Wannstedt. The fans weren’t coming to games and Pitt was in something of an athletic renaissance, moving to Heinz Field, building a new basketball arena and having that team play at the top of the Big East Conference, but the renaissance could not be complete without a winning football program.
It reached the point that one day Pitt’s Chancellor Mark Nordenberg called him in for a visit.
That is the equivalent of being called into the principal’s office in high school.
“Our chancellor stepped up,” Wannstedt said. “I had had two or three years. We talked about the direction of the program. I said, if we were to go forward this or that must happen. He stepped up, made a commitment and extended our program.”
That was a few days before Pitt was to play at West Virginia in 2007, a few days before the upset of the century.
Things took hold from there, and the patience paid off.
Now it’s understandable why people would question Wannstedt at the beginning. College football was going in one direction; he was going in another. The game had evolved into Madden football, spread offenses, speed everywhere, bubble screens, zone blocking.
That wasn’t, however, what Wannstedt believed in.
He liked the pro-set offense, quarterback under center, a fullback, a tight end. He liked to run and run, then throw when he had teams looking for the run.
“We’ll probably be one of the dinosaurs left that are lining up with the fullback and a tailback and trying to pound people and play-action pass,” Wannstedt said. “In all the Super Bowls and national championships that I’ve been associated with, that’s what we did. Football goes in cycles. But you have to do what you believe in and what you understand.”
That, it might be argued, is exactly what Bill Stewart is trying to do at West Virginia.
Personally, I like what Wannstedt does better than what Stewart is doing, but what I like doesn’t matter. What matters is what works and Stewart has actually had two better years than did Wannstedt to begin.
If he can pull off the upset next week down here, perhaps his program will take off again, as did Wannstedt’s.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
