JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jarrett Brown has the sniffles.
Now you know what it’s like covering a bowl game. Nothing is too small to escape the magnifying glass that is the media.
“It’s nothing,” the West Virginia quarterback said when one probing media member noticed that he was sniffling, if that is the verb that goes with the sniffles.
Nothing, huh? So how come Coach Bill Stewart says he’s being medicated.
Next thing you know he’s going to be sneezing.
Like why not? It’s downright … eh, chilly here.
Sure, it’s 18 back there where you are, or whatever, and there’s a white glaze on the ground, but don’t you be telling anyone you’ve got it tough. Why just today one of the Jacksonville sportswriters was talking about how bad the weather really is.
“It’s supposed to be 32 tomorrow morning,” he said, “and I’ve got a tennis game.”
Tennis, in December — outdoors.
Tough life in Florida, your Florida, Jarrett Brown.
“This isn’t Florida. This is North Florida. It’s like South Georgia,” Brown said.
“Only state where the further north you go, the more southern it becomes,” Colin Dunlap, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette philosopher noted.
See, the real Florida is down around West Palm Beach, which is Brown’s area.
“It’s warm down there,” Brown said.
You might be noticing there isn’t a whole lot really startling stuff coming out of either camp ever since WVU announced that defensive tackle Scooter Berry and safety Nate Sowers were ineligible due to some blips on their academic records.
We’re still trying to find out if Heather Bresch is eligible to play, however.
Oh, there was news of a sort.
A couple of WVU players got into a fight during Sunday’s practice.
Funny, isn’t it, how if they did that on a Thursday night in October in outside Bent Wiley’s in downtown Morgantown it would be a scandalous thing, but here it was a just a couple of the guys feeling their oats.
“The players took care of it,” said Stewart. “I wasn’t getting in there. They’re too big for me.”
In a lot of ways, this is the way football should be all year round. We make it into something it really isn’t, a matter of life and death instead of a bunch of kids playing a game, not much more than an elevated television quiz show or, probably more to the point, a reality show that some days is akin to “Survivor” and other days more like “The Housewives of Orange County.”
This bowl game has all the makings of being what football really should be like. To begin with, there’s no championship at stake, it’s become a tribute to the veteran coach Bobby Bowden, who has won more games than any coach except Joe Paterno, and is coaching his last game.
That makes it fun, especially since the football Bowden always coached was fun, complete with trick plays and speed everywhere, much the same way West Virginia can play the game.
Certainly Stewart expects there to be more than just a series of boring runs off tackle.
“They’ll do anything they need to do to win this game — reverses, reverse passed. Jimbo (FSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher) will do it all, used every trick in the book.”
And you know what, Stewart may just fight fire with fire.
“I told them don’t leave any bullets in the holster,” Stewart said.
That, of course, could mean anything, and if Florida State is reading this, it might even mean that the Mountaineers would use cornerback Brandon Hogan, who admits he wants to play both ways next year, as say a “wildcat” quarterback, although no one will say if it has or hasn’t been instituted.
But Stewart wouldn’t mind if FSU practiced against a “wildcat”, just he case he has or hasn’t put it in.
The matchup is a good one, for Bowden has been a great bowl coach and Stewart has coached two bowls and won both of them.
“Our philosophy,” he explained, “is to have fun. Give ‘em a plan, be upfront with them and let them know what it will take to win, then practice fast. I don’t want it to be drudgery”
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
HERTZEL COLUMN - College football under the magnifying glass
- Bob Herzel
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Jones nears milestone as Notre Dame visits WVU
That it is a crucial game in a season that seems to have nothing but, today’s 9 p.m. visit to the Coliseum by a streaking Notre Dame team comes with a historical footnote in the history of West Virginia University basketball.
Kevin Jones enters the game having scored 20 or more points in nine consecutive games. -
WVU source: Battle to join Big 12 nearing conclusion
Indications were growing that West Virginia University’s battle to leave the Big East and join the Big 12 in time for the 2012 season was about to be won, possibly as early as today.
A source within the Mountaineer athletic department said on Tuesday that the matter was nearing a conclusion and also told the Times West Virginian that West Virginia would be reinstating a golf team to compete in the Big 12. -
HERTZEL COLUMN: WVU, Irish strikingly similar
Consider, if you will, that it is Nov. 25 past, that the West Virginia University basketball team is running a routine drill four games into its season, getting ready for the Akron game when Kevin Jones goes down in a heap on the floor, his ACL torn, his season over.
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WVU source: Battle to join Big 12 nearing conclusion
Indications were growing that West Virginia University’s battle to leave the Big East and join the Big 12 in time for the 2012 season was about to be won, possibly as early as today.
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HERTZEL COLUMN - Truck drives Mountaineers to needed win
Perhaps it is what has kept him going through a West Virginia basketball career with as many turns as a trip to Pineville down in Wyoming County, but Truck Bryant enjoys being Truck Bryant.
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WVU finds a way, wins in overtime
Truck Bryant made the headline plays, including a 3-point shot with 3.3 seconds left to play, as West Virginia saved its season with an 87-84 overtime victory at Providence, but the subheads had to be reserved for Deniz Kilicli and a pair of freshman guards.
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Mountaineers face critical test today at Providence
The schedule tells you it’s another game in the marathon run that is the Big East season, a trip to Providence to play a team with only two conference victories, but somehow everyone connected with the West Virginia University program knows today’s noon meeting with the Friars is much more than that.
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HERTZEL COLUMN: Jones on the brink of WVU history
On the one hand there is yesterday’s Warren Baker, who entered the WVU Athletic Hall of Fame in the latest class for the work he did from 1973 to 1976, and on the other hand there is today’s star Kevin Jones, who has emerged from the shadows of the likes of Joe Alexander and Da’Sean Butler this year to carve his own niche in Mountaineer basketball history.
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WVU backs out of Florida State game
West Virginia University has canceled its Sept. 8 football game at Florida State.
Once again, as they have done with virtually everything since announcing they planned to move from the Big East to the Big 12, they did it behind closed doors, without any announcement or statement. -
WVU women upset Louisville
It is foolhardy to put it up there with the Baylors and Notre Dames of the women’s world just yet, but really if you look closely and see potential, much of which came out Saturday afternoon when the Mountaineers upset No. 12/14 Louisville, 66-50, you realize that this team is closer to greatness than it is to mediocrity.
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Jones nears milestone as Notre Dame visits WVU
