MORGANTOWN — West Virginia University football coach Bill Stewart has cleared junior Jock Sanders to return to working out with the team but says he has not yet lifted his suspension of the talented but sometimes troubled slot receiver.
Sanders was suspended indefinitely by Stewart in mid-February after he was arrested and charged with driving under the influence.
Sanders was arrested after being stopped for speeding and crossing the center line in a black Dodge Charger. The arrest report stated he failed three of four field sobriety tests and had a blood alcohol level of .125. The legal limit in West Virginia is .08.
It was Sanders’ second brush with the law within a year, having been arrested with three other WVU players after a fight outside a downtown club the previous February, pleading no contest and receiving a fine and community service.
Before Stewart will allow Sanders to participate in camp or play in any games he must pass a DMV driving class and stand before the Student Judiciary Committee chaired by Melanie Cook.
“If he does all that, he probably still will be facing a suspension,” Stewart said.
But Stewart believes that Sanders has been moving in the right direction in straightening himself out.
“I told him that letting him work out is an act of good faith on our part,” Stewart said. “I did it with the backing of my athletic director and after talking to my seniors. But I also let him know that he must still pass the required DMV course and the Judiciary Committee.”
Sanders has been going through summer conditioning drills at Mountaineer Field for the past week and has been participating in 7-on-7 drills.
“He has to get some help, and our job is to help him mature and become a better citizen in society,” Stewart said. “I gave my word when I got this job that we would have good citizens playing for us.”
Sanders’ on-field presence would be a big help to what promises to be a pass-happy offense that Stewart is putting together.
Last year he was the team’s leading receiver with 53 catches for 462 yards and seven touchdowns.
No other West Virginia player caught more than 35 passes.
The Mountaineers also used him effectively on reverses, carrying 48 times and averaging 5.2 yards a carry and scoring two more touchdowns.
With Sanders suspended during the spring, Stewart experimented with 6-8 Wes Lyons running out of the slot, and he was nothing short of sensational in the role.
However, if Sanders is back, Lyons most likely will work out of the wide receiver spot with Alric Arnett and Bradley Starks.
Stewart might continue to use Lyons in the slot when Sanders is out of the game or even use Sanders at times at running back to spell Noel Devine or with Devine in the same backfield.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com or reach him through Facebook.
Bob Herzel
Related Photos
-
PHOTO BY TAMMY SHRIVER
The first step
WVU’s Sanders cleared to work out with team
- 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
