MORGANTOWN — All things considered, I’d rather you not be reading this today.

I had prepared a thoroughly harmless column on how Bill Stewart is moving away from the spread and more to the I formation this year, the kind of column that helps pass the final week before football camp opens.

But we have to save that for another day, because the NCAA has pre-empted that column by sending a 10-page letter of allegations to West Virginia University that is almost surely going to land the school on some kind of probation, maybe cost it some scholarships and, who knows, maybe even a bowl appearance.

And before you go damning Rich Rodriguez again, which you will be doing in a moment, there is something you should know about the NCAA’s findings.

Bill Stewart was made to look as bad as Rich Rod in the allegations.

On the surface, it seems almost absurd to think that Bill Stewart and Rich Rod could share the same NCAA cell. That’s like making Lady Gaga and Mother Teresa roommates.

Yet, that’s what’s charged by the NCAA, which found that Rodriguez — surprise, surprise — bent the rules from 2005 until he left West Virginia, leaving a trail of shredded evidence behind him. Rodriguez, the investigation showed, seemed to use everyone but Rhett and Raquel, his children, to help coach the team.

And that doesn’t count the spy who was caught down at Marshall or who knows how many other shadowy characters who would be seen moving in and out of the Puskar Center during his coaching days there.

It was the same thing he did when he left for Michigan and the same thing he’ll probably do when Michigan lets him go and he winds up coaching the Grant Town Ruffians.

There probably wasn’t a soul who didn’t think Rodriguez was doing something illegal when a host of fleet, talented players found their way past schools like LSU and Alabama and Florida and discovered Morgantown, W.Va., turning the football program into a contender for the national championship.

And, those who didn’t believe that, well, they believe Mark McGwire got his strength from eating Captain Crunch for breakfast.

But Bill Stewart?

Cheat? Break rules? Use his director of player relations and his director of high school relations, along with graduate assistants and maybe even his secretary, Lori Rice, as on-field or in classroom coaches?

Not that man.

That’s like accusing Andy Taylor of abusing Opie or like saying there is no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny.

Bill Stewart is a man who actually once said:

“Whenever I take the field, I always think of my mom and dad. I always think of New Martinsville, West Virginia. I think of the valley. Every time I take the field.”

Could a man like that actually have “failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance within the football program,” as charged by the NCAA?

It is certainly difficult to fathom, that is for sure.

Yet, the NCAA must be pretty sure that Stewart and Rodriguez are two peas in a pod or they wouldn’t be issuing such charges. They certainly worked hard to come up with that finding, spending nine months and more than 80 interviews to reach such a conclusion.

It’s just hard to lump them together like Rogers and Hammerstein, Laurel and Hardy or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The knee-jerk reaction is to say Stewart just carried on what Rodriguez had begun and had no idea that it was a violation, but that may be a worse charge than to say he knew what he was doing. Stewart is supposed to know the rules and has a compliance department, even if it is one in turmoil at present, considering its turnover, to warn him of possible violations.

See, there is one way Stewart and Rodriguez are similar and it is in their drive to win.

Rodriguez would send a wide receiver on a crack back block of his mother to win a game and Stewart isn’t much different, although we suspect he’d spare his mother.

“I want to win every game I’ve ever played, every game I ever coached since I was a little boy at Magnolia High. I want to win. That’s why I play. And when I quit wanting to win I’ll quit playing and coaching,” he said this week at the Big East meetings in Newport, R.I.

The idea of winning becomes so important that in their value system losing becomes worse than bending the rules to win. The end justifies the mean.

Certainly, it’s not the worst condition to have, until it creates a win-at-all-costs belief.

Then you have Pete Rose or Mark McGwire, you have linebackers trying to take out the knees of running backs, pitchers throwing at batters’ heads, a sporting society with rules that are followed only by those who are considered losers.

If, indeed, Stewart actually became Rodriguez and failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance, then he became a loser, no matter what the scoreboard said.

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