In late 2007 all was right in Mountaineer land. The West Virginia Mountaineer
football team was on the verge of playing in its very first BCS Championship
game. A bizarre series of upsets in college football had left the highly
regarded Mountaineers as the only legitimate prospect to play Ohio State for
the national title. There is little
doubt in anyone’s mind that, had West Virginia played Ohio State in that game,
they would have ripped the Buckeyes to shreds. OSU was a paper tiger that year
and the Mountaineers, under seventh year head coach Rich Rodriguez, were the
scourge of college football. With Pat White at quarterback, Steve Slaton and
freshmen super-recruit Noel Devine at tailback (RichRod prefers the term
“Superback” but it’s the running back with the speed to take it the distance)
and fullback Owen Schmitt blocking and running as well this was one of the most
talented and perhaps fastest backfields in the history of college football.
Although they weren’t any great shakes as a passing team, the WVU ground game
was nearly impossible to stop. Rodriguez’s read option based offense presented
defenses with a serious conundrum; pack your defenders in to stop the run
between the tackles and White would make you pay the moment you bit on the fake
to the back. Spread your defenders out to keep White from running wild and
Slaton and Devine would gash you for fifteen right up the middle. Get them in
third and short and the Mountaineer big uglies would drive block while 260
pound Owen Schmitt made you regret hitting him head on.
But, as college football fans
know, they didn’t play in that game against OSU. With melodrama swirling around
the program about Rodriguez flirtation with Michigan they dropped a 13-9 game
to a 4-7 Pitt team that shouldn’t have been able to stay within 30 points of
the Mountaineers.
Rodriguez and his entourage’s handling of the Michigan affair was an
absolute clinic of how not to leave your current position for another.
Rodriguez lied about his whereabouts, lied to his players, contacted West
Virginia recruits from his state-issued cell phone to try and get them to
follow him to Ann Arbor and, worst of all, insulted his alma mater and his home
state. In California or New York that may not sound like a big deal, but in
West Virginia, where state pride is taken very seriously and the WVU
Mountaineers are the traveling embodiment of a state that faces continual
ridicule, it stirred up a hornets nest of resentment and loathing.
The Mountaineers bowed up
their backs and against all odds, destroyed an Oklahoma team in the Fiesta Bowl
that was, by many knowledgeable talking heads, the most talented team in the
country. The emotional victory by West Virginia native, interim coach and all
around good guy Bill Stewart propelled the university administration to make an
emotional (and financial) decision to hire Stewart as the full time coach.
After two big BCS wins,
double digit wins season records and finishes in the Top 10, the Mountaineer
nation had arrived. And they weren’t going to tolerate 8 or 9 wins any longer.
Although many people don’t realize it, West Virginia is among the top fifteen
all-time winning-est programs in the history of college football. They were
finally getting the respect and recognition that they had long deserved and
many felt that Stewart’s nice guy approach was robbing the team of the
reputation it had built for nastiness on the field. (West Virginia also has a
reputation for nastiness from its fans as well but that is a discussion for
another time)
After three seasons of
sub-par performances, West Virginia Athletic Director Oliver Luck made the
decision to let Stewart go. It seemed that the vast majority of the fans and
booster thought that he was a wonderful man, a proud West Virginian, someone
that you’d love to have as a next door neighbor or the coach of your kids
soccer team or even the assistant coach but not someone that most wanted to be
at the helm of the ship. He was and is to this day, wildly popular in the state
but most were eager to see him go. Tragically, Bill Stewart died of a heart
attack while playing in a golf event the following year.
Here is where our story
begins.
Oliver Luck had reached back
to his Texas days and hired Dana Holgorsen, a hotshot offensive coordinator
with Oklahoma State who had also had stints at Houston and Texas Tech, all
highly productive offenses with star quarterbacks. For the uninitiated among
you, Oliver Luck is a graduate of West Virginia University and was the
quarterback for the team in the early 1980’s. A Rhodes Scholar finalist, he was
drafted by the Houston Oilers and served as the backup to Archie Manning. Luck
went to law school at the University of Texas and served as commissioner of the
World League of American Football and as president of the Houston/Harris County
Sports Authority. Luck hired Holgorsen as head coach in waiting, arguably the
one questionable thing he’s done in a career of high achievement. Holgorsen
would serve one season as the teams offensive coordinator before taking over
the head job.
After some shenanigans that
seemed to suggest that Bill Stewart night not be quite the nice guy that his
image seemed to portray, Holgorsen found himself taking over as head coach
immediately. Luck no doubt felt some pressure to act quickly on the Holgorsen
hire. West Virginia’s arch rival Pitt was also looking to replace their
departed coach in Dave Wannstadt and was looking hard at Holgorsen. (Pitt’s
embarrassing coaching carousel is also a subject for another time) Holgorsen
had produced prolific offense everywhere he’d been and was going to get a head
coaching job somewhere. Luck pulled the trigger and signed him to a contract
with an $11.6 million dollar buyout clause. Luck can be forgiven for the size
and scope of this buyout. West Virginia had been involved in incidents with
both RichRod and Bill Stewart over aspects of contract buyouts. With Holgorsen
as an Oklahoma native with deep Texas recruiting roots, West Virginia needed to
be certain that, if Holgorsen was going to be their man, he was going to be
there for a while or else someone was going to pay a bundle to hire him away.
If Holgorsen did well at West Virginia and an opening came about at say, Texas,
he would have been on the short list of possible candidates to replace Mack
Brown.
Although the 2011 season
wasn’t magical by Mountaineer standards (understand that this team has had two
undefeated seasons in the past 25 years and won three BCS bowls in a six year
span) they did manage to squeak out the Big East’s automatic BCS bid over
Connecticut and Cincinnati. In the Orange Bowl they did what West Virginia
always seems to do in BCS games; they made broadcasters and pundits look
stupid, not to mention the Clemson Tigers. In 2006, West Virginia was picked to
get mauled by Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. Nobody told the Mountaineers. They
jumped out to a 28-0 lead before Georgia managed to wake up and at least make a
game of it. In 2008 they obliterated the Oklahoma Sooners in the Fiesta Bowl. West
Virginia was given no chance to win the game. Sooner players were seen having
their pictures taken beside the Fiesta Bowl trophy in the days leading up to
the game, stating that once it got back to Norman, it would be put in a case
behind glass and they would never be able to get this close to it again. I
wasn’t able to ask any of the Sooner players from that game if they’d made the
drive to Morgantown
To visit “their” trophy.
But now those heady days seem
long past to West Virginia fans. The 2012 season saw them ranked fifth before
dropping five straight games. The Tavon Austin, Geno Smith and Stedman Bailey
show couldn’t put up enough points to make up for a defense that was just
awful. Historically awful. The Mountaineers finished that season 7-6, getting
manhandled by a Syracuse team in the lowly Pinstripe bowl who looked and acted
like they actually wanted to be there.
This season was a giant question mark for the
Mountaineer faithful. How would they replace the productivity of their wide
receivers? How do you replace a quarterback who starts in the NFL as a rookie
for the New York Jets? How do you improve a defense that was one of the worst
ever against the pass? The answers are quite simple really, even if the end
result isn’t good. Tavon Austin was a
once in a generation player. If you doubt me I suggest that you go watch his
three touchdown performance in the NFL a couple of weeks ago against the Colts.
No one as much as laid a finger on him all day. He is hands down the fastest
and quickest player in the NFL. Stedman Bailey simply caught everything that
was thrown his way. You can’t replace those things. However, you do what West
Virginia did. You open up playing time to true freshman if they earn it, you bring in Juco players to try and fill holes
and you encourage transfers. (encouraging transfers is tricky business but you
are naïve if you think that every team in the FBS doesn’t do it) In part the
strategy has worked and in part it hasn’t. West Virginia’s defense is vastly
improved from the previous one. They may not always look the part but its not
easy when your offense turns the ball over on your own ten yard line and then
says, “go out and hold them to a field goal for us.”
The quarterback position at
West Virginia is a disaster. The guy with the knowledge of the system and the
ability to read defenses is a marginal scholarship athlete at best who has a
weak arm and panics in the pocket. The transfer student from Florida State with
Blue and Gold blood in his veins has the heart of a lion but seems to have
little grasp of the playbook other than to either throw a middle screen or toss
it up for grabs to wideout Kevin White (Juco), who will become a beast with
time and will play on Sunday but right now is mostly unrealized potential. The
gunslinging 6’5”, 230 pound redshirt freshman with the cannon for an arm has no
clue what to do with the football once its snapped to him. He has time to
improve. The other two will be seniors next season. They are both as good as
they will ever get, although Clint Trickett will benefit from at least knowing
the system next year. If West Virginia can find another transfer or junior
college quarterback that can enroll in Janiary and participate in spring
football, they would be foolish not to take the chance and offer him a
scholarship. Auburn did it with Cam Newton, Wisconsin did it with Russell
Wilson. The fact that the job is wide open for the taking and that your last
quarterback is making millions in the NFL will add considerable weight to the
recruiting.
The Mountaineer offensive
line is just terrible. Trickett’s father, Rick Trickett, coached at West
Virginia under Rodriguez and built one of the most effective units in the
country. When Bobby Bowden (another West Virginia tie) came calling with more
money, Trickett bolted for Tallahassee. His offensive line this year for head
coach Jimbo Fisher (native West Virgninian) is one of the best in the country.
WVU needs to hire an offensive line coach that can bring back the attitude that
produced All-American talent like Jozwiak, Compton, Mozes, Paige and Stanchek.
They are out there. They aren’t cheap. Maybe the university can part with a
little of that new found Big Twelve TV money to pay for a coach that will make
a difference. The current one isn’t. The Mountaineers need to go trolling for
the best Juco talent that’s out there. Of course, so is everyone else. But the
Mountaineers have a pretty good pedigree of putting offensive linemen into the
NFL. They need to leverage that along with the carrot of early playing time for
those who can prove that they can do the job. Blocking junior college linemen
and safeties and blocking Jackson Jeffcoat are not the same thing. No matter
how good an offensive line recruit is coming out of high school, he isn’t
likely to be big enough, heavy enough or strong enough to start a D1 game.
They could also potentially
get that money from ridding themselves of ineffective coaches with exorbitant
salaries. Special teams coach Joe DeForest (yep, the same one from the Okie
State story that went nowhere) adds little to the staff and is essentially paid
to be Holgorsen’s party pal. DeForest presided over the defense last season
(yes, that defense). He simply needs to go and his salary needs to be divided
on an inexpensive special teams coach while the rest goes to find someone who
can teach twenty year olds how to block. Holgorsen will not likely be amenable
to letting his running buddy go. Luck will need to be forceful. Head coaches of
4 or 5 win teams that used to be 9 and 10 win teams don’t get to be indignant
and picky. Sorry, Dana.
That brings us to Holgorsen
himself. The truth is that Luck took a chance based on Holgorsen’s past
performance as an offensive coordinator and so far, it’s not panning out. It
may yet, though. Although his play calling is not good, Holgorsen is being
forced to use what he’s got. If the offensive line can’t pass protect for a
seven step drop, you can’t run plays that require a seven step drop. If you
have to keep two protectors in to block in order to buy yourself enough time to
execute a pass play, you can no longer employ a four wide look. He’s hindered
by the lack of talent on the line in everything he does. But Dana Holforsen’s
shortcomings as a coach aren’t really on questionable play calls. They are in
leadership. They are in the way he conducts himself on the sideline. Right now,
he is not head coach material. He may grow into the role and mature if given
time.
When the man in charge looks
like he’s losing control of his composure on the sidelines, it has a
detrimental effect on the players. These are young men that need to be led.
Throwing play cards and destroying headsets is immature and serves only to
lessen his authority over his team. Most parents want to be assured that their
son will be part of a program that is headed by a mature, level headed coach.
When that parent brings their child to a game at Mountaineer Field, does it
look like a situation where that is the case? Not now it doesn’t. It looks like
you’ve got a man in charge that isn’t in any more control of his emotions than
your eighteen year old son. That has a detrimental effect on recruiting,
something that West Virginia has historically done very well. In a state that
ranks 41st in population and produces only two or three FBS-level athletes
each year, it is absolutely vital that West Virginia keep a sterling reputation
as a place to come and play. Very few kids from Florida or New Jersey or Texas
grow up wanting to wear the Blue and Gold as children.
Dana Holgorsen can turn
things around at West Virginia. He won’t be fired no matter what happens
against Iowa State, no matter what some fans and boosters want. However, his
leash is short and the seat of his trousers should be getting very warm right
about now. If West Virginia doesn’t win eight games next season, and they
probably won’t, he’ll be gone. The schedule next year is less favorable than
the one this year.
If he’s fired from his first
head coaching job with a below .500 record at a school that has always been a
winner, he will have to wait a long time before he gets another chance to coach
at the D-1 level again.
Should Holgorsen be fired
after next season, or even in mid-season if things are going badly, Oliver Luck
won’t be able to go the “aggressive young assistant coach” route again. He’ll
be forced to hire a coach who has proven he could recruit and win in the past
but has for some reason or another been tarnished to make him more affordable
for West Virginia’s limited budget. The Mountaineers aren’t poor by NCAA
standards but they also aren’t Texas or Michigan or Alabama (Sorry, West
Virginia but Nick Saban isn’t coming home to coach – yet another West Virginia
link)
There are six tarnished
coaches right now that would jump at the chance to come to Morgantown, and
would do it on the cheap. I have listed these in order of likelihood.
1.
Rich Rodriguez – I know what you all said,
Mountaineers. Never in a million years. It’s amazing how quickly a million
years can go by.
2.
Terry Bowden – another West Virginia link.
Bowden played at West Virginia.
3.
Tommy Bowden – Ditto Terry but without the hint
of scandal. He’d like to coach again.
4.
Bobby Petrino – somebody is eventually going to
do it.
5.
Mike Locksley – West Virginia is a better job
than Maryland. He’d jump but he’s not well liked by those at West Virginia who
write big checks.
6.
Lane Kiffin – He can recruit like nobody’s
business. He may be a jerk but you already had RichRod. Could this be any
worse?
Stephen Walker writes blog articles on a wide range of topics. He is a
novelist and short story fiction writer who writes for the Erudite Aardvark and
other online concerns. He can be reached at stephen.walker@eruditeaardvark.com.
This article is the
intellectual property of The Erudite Aardvark, which reserves all rights
to the content. It may not be copied or re-transmitted in any fashion without
the express, written permission of the owner.
