The Times West Virginian

WVU Sports

July 24, 2009

HERTZEL COLUMN: Football fever is upon us

By Bob Hertzel

MORGANTOWN — This is the time of year it strikes, coming out of nowhere.

You might go to bed with a tickle in the back of your throat or a dull headache, but you don’t pay much attention to it.

Not that it matters. There is no remedy, no vaccine.

By morning you know that you’ve caught it, though.

Football fever is upon us.

As July heads toward August the Pirates have always dropped out of sight, the players you wanted to root for were wearing uniforms of other teams. Basketball has had its summer run and now was over. The Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open are gone and tennis … well, there’s just not many people playing that game anymore.

And so it is that the mind automatically turns to football. Anticipation mounts early in these parts.

Camp is just around the corner for both the West Virginia Mountaineers and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

You pick up the newspaper or look on the Internet and it seems to be coming at you from everywhere.

Steve Slaton is the subject of a Sporting News Q&A.;

Ben Roethlisberger is the subject of a sexual assault lawsuit in Nevada.

Miami is still buzzing over the thought of Patrick White running their Wildcat formation.

Owen Schmitt is pleading guilty to reckless driving in Washington.

The sale of the Steelers is completed to Dan Rooney, our ambassador to Ireland.

The conversation in the bars begins to change. You don’t hear Tiger Woods name as much. Albert Pujols is a summertime distraction who has had his run.

You hear more and more talk about Jarrett Brown and the task he has of taking over the Mountaineer offense.

They’re questioning the strength of the WVU offensive line already, hoping it can just get in someone’s way long enough for Noel Devine to find a crease, a hole, an opening.

Newspapers are running previews of games that are still three and four months away, talking about coaches who have yet to ever coach a game, talking about strengths and weaknesses on opponents where starting players have yet to even be selected.

It doesn’t matter if it is right or wrong. There is no right or wrong at this time of year.

What matters is that it’s football.

Coaches are on vacation, unavailable for comment. Players are putting the final touches on their conditioning before the long, hot, dog days of August and camp where Gatorade replaces beer as the liquid of choice and where tattoos and bruises seem to be as one on the a defensive end’s forearm.

It’s almost time to watch as jobs are won and time is lost, where you hit hard and hope not to injure anyone, yet you almost know that one player who is being counted on will fall by the wayside, testing the depth of talent and giving opportunity to some unknown where none previously existed for him.

Coaches can’t wait to get home from the shore to start watching film, to start putting in the plays that need to be tested out. Players actually begin thinking about what it takes to better that 9-4 record of a year ago, about how bad it tasted not to be a Big East champion.

Bill Stewart has the itch to go out there and prove that he was the right choice to replace Rich Rodriguez, that his second year will show improvement over his first year and the public will take his offense that he hopes is more fancy passing than a fancy passing.

It’s all starting to come back to all of us, the dryness in the mouth, the tremble in the hands.

As difficult as it is to imagine, a football game has not been played in Morgantown since last Dec. 6 and a Mountaineer touchdown has not been scored at Milan Puskar Stadium since Tyler Urban caught a 12-yard pass from White on the game’s first possession.

Since then, though the long winter, the spring and now the summer, football has been in hibernation, but now we anticipate its return, much the way children anticipate the arrival of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

It’s just two weeks now until camp opens.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.

Text Only
WVU Sports
  • Streaking Louisville visits WVU

    Everyone has focused on West Virginia University’s rivalry with Pittsburgh as a potential victim of the move to the Big 12 by the Mountaineers, but there is another rivalry that almost certainly will be coming to an end, and while the feelings are not as bitter, the games often are as hard-fought and tense.

    February 11, 2012

  • Verbal agreement: $20 million to Big East

    West Virginia University and the Big East have reached a verbal agreement that will allow the Mountaineers to join the Big 12 on July 1 and play all sports in that conference this year, according to a source and published reports.
    A total of $20 million will go to the Big East to allow WVU to skip the 27-month waiting period stipulated in conference bylaws and to cover the damages caused by possibly playing with just seven members this season.

    February 11, 2012

  • HERTZEL COLUMN: Mountaineers of past won’t forget Brawl

    It is difficult to write about a story that is just beginning but that will never end, that being, of course, West Virginia University’s move to the Big 12 from the Big East, a move that may well signal the end of the Backyard Brawl.

    February 11, 2012

  • Holmes to play in McDonald’s All American games

    Bria Holmes, a signee to the class of 2012-13 West Virginia University women’s basketball team, has been selected to play in the 11th annual McDonald’s All American Girls Game.
    Holmes becomes the first-ever female player out of the state of Connecticut to be selected to the roster.

    February 11, 2012

  • WVU, Big East reach agreement

    West Virginia University and the Big East have reached a conditional agreement that will allow the Mountaineers to join the Big 12 on July 1 and play football there next season, the Charleston Daily Mail reported Thursday night, citing an unidentified source.

    February 10, 2012

  • HERTZEL COLUMN: This WVU team different from previous squads

    Games may be won or lost under glaring lights of a college arena, filled with faithful fans and the prying eye of the ever-present, unblinking television camera, but teams are built in a far different way.
    They come together in a gym that smells of sweat and yesterday’s hotdogs.

    February 10, 2012

  • Notre Dame stops WVU, 55-51

    If Kevin Jones could have scored 20 points against Notre Dame on Wednesday night before a disappointing crowd of 9,258 in the Coliseum he would have joined Jerry West and Hot Rod Hundley in the West Virginia record books.

    February 9, 2012

  • HERTZEL COLUMN: It’s unfair to consider Truck villain

    The zero next to Truck Bryant’s name stood out like an obscene gesture during a Super Bowl halftime show.
    Some even said he was M.I.A. as West Virginia University lost a heartbreaker, if not a season-breaker, to Notre Dame, 55-51.

    February 9, 2012

  • 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.

    February 8, 2012

  • 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.

    February 8, 2012