MORGANTOWN — West Virginia’s second spring practice had just ended and as usual coach Bill Stewart gathered his team around him for a final talk. Normally, Stewart goes over a few points and the talk is over but this day it went a bit longer than normal.
“We had a little family discussion about what our goals are and what they should be,” Stewart explained later. “Last year we starting talking about championships; well, the only championship I want them talking about is the Big East championships. It is our goal and that will always be our goal. You can’t do anything without the Big East; you have to win it before you meet any other goals. Sometimes young guys put the horse before the cart.”
Sometimes we lose sight of just how pliable these kids can be. It’s hard to remain humble at 18 or 20 or even 22 when you see you are a contender for a national championship, when you are ranked No. 8 in the country, when you have to choose between interviewing with the Fairmont Times West Virginian or USA Today.
This was something Stewart mentioned a couple of weeks ago when he met with the media and pointed out the Big East championship is — and always was — the only goal West Virginia should be shooting for.
Stewart honestly believes that losing sight of reality had a negative effect upon his team … with some of the fault falling on him as a new coach who couldn’t derail what was going on.
“I believe that day in Greenville our young men found out that you have to do more than put on the old gold and blue. That game is when we said, ‘Oh, oh, Owen Schmitt isn’t here. Keilen Dykes isn’t here.’ I think they thought Patrick While would bail them out like he always did. I believe our eyes opened that day and that’s why I tell them they better respect all and fear none — that’s what we’re about at West Virginia.”
You might remember the comeuppance that occurred in Greenville, N.C., on Sept. 6, 2008. That is home to East Carolina and Mountaineer nation when in there thinking this was a pushover, be they fans or players.
The Mountaineers had just beaten Villanova, 48-21, in a game that should have told them they weren’t nearly as good as they thought they were, but everyone got revved up with Pat White throwing five touchdowns.
East Carolina was a Conference USA team, a school that had beaten WVU only once in its history, and this was supposed to be another sparring match.
With that game, the mystique was gone.
“I told them they better quit worrying about Game No. 13 and worry about game No. 1, 2 and 3,” Stewart said.
And that certainly is how it is going to have to be this year, for West Virginia will not hold a No. 8 preseason ranking. It may not be a Top 25 team coming into the season and will have to prove itself on the field.
That is why they have to go through the spring without an sense of ego or self importance, eager to learn and accept that you get only what you earn on the field.
NOTES: Call it a Holy War, if you must, but the first fight of the spring was between running back Noel Devine and linebacker Bob Mary. Holy? Noel vs. Mary! Guess whose side the coaches were on in this one, considering that Noel is the top running back on the team and Mary is a backup linebacker … Saturday the Mountaineers will scrimmage and Stewart has invited 500 of the Mountaineer Maniacs to attend … It begins at 11 a.m. and as Stewart said he had to offer the Maniacs pizza because “someone asked me how we could get them out at 11 a.m. when we can’t get them out for noon games.” … There will also be a number of recruits there on Saturday ... Quarterback Jarrett Brown threw the football well for the second straight day and Stewart made note that he did it against a Mountaineer secondary that has great speed … Redshirt wide receiver Gino Crump out of Washington, D.C., looks like a name you better learn.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
Championship talk stops at Big East title
- Bob Herzel
-
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Patrone finally gets his due
Lee Patrone says he remembers it vividly, even though more than 50 years have passed, and while it was the greatest accomplishment in his life it has nothing to do with the West Virginia University basketball career that has lifted him into the Class of 2012 that will be inducted into the Mountaineer Sports Hall of Fame in September.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: No doubt WVU made out well
There was a cold, ill wind blowing in from the north on Friday.
It was the kind of wind that blows whenever a Pitt man opens his mouth, as the Pittsburgh athletic director Steve Pederson did. -
Tears and memories: VIDEO
It was mid-Thursday afternoon at the Morgantown Event Center and the crowd stood mostly silently in line that wound out of the Events Hall and into the hallway toward the staircase.
A young lady was there holding a singular golden rose
“I wish,” Rebecca Durst said, “it could be gold and blue.” -
HERTZEL COLUMN: Stew fondly remembered by players
The tributes have poured in all week for Bill Stewart, the former West Virginia University football coach whose sudden and unexpected death from a heart attack at age 59 on Monday stunned the state, but it wasn’t the administrators or executives or politicians who really knew him.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: White right there with Hall of Famers
Back on New Year’s Eve, 2008, shortly after West Virginia University had edged North Carolina, 31-30, to win the Meineke Car Care Bowl, an attempt was made to put Mountaineer quarterback Patrick White into his proper historical perspective.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Pat Beilein follows in father’s path
In a day filled with the sorrow of former West Virginia University football coach Bill Stewart’s sudden and unexpected death, there was a ray of sunshine that managed to slip through, a happening that shows us all that even in death there is life and as one son grieves, as does Stewart’s son, Blaine, somewhere else a father basks in pride over his son.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN - Stewart’s gift was giving
It was the kind of cosmic happening that defies description. We all come across them from time to time, leaving us in a state of disbelief.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: This ‘Maniac’ makes music with Kilicli
Mike Martin wasn’t long removed from his New York roots, a somewhat rare import in these parts compared to the migration of New Jerseyites who matriculate at West Virginia University.
-
Van Zant fired as WVU baseball coach
West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck believes with a new coach and a new stadium the Mountaineers can compete with the likes of Texas and Oklahoma for the Big 12 baseball championship but understands it will not come easily or quickly.
-
SEC, Big 12 team up for bowl
Even before the full impact of West Virginia University’s 2014 season-opening meeting with Alabama in Atlanta has been grasped, the opportunity presented itself for the two to meet again later in that season or future ones in a bowl agreement between the Big 12 and SEC that is much like the Rose Bowl agreement between the Big Ten and the Pac-12.
- More Bob Herzel Headlines
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Patrone finally gets his due
