By Bob Hertzel
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.
