Two missions
West Virginia University football coach Bill Stewart was handed three missions.
While he was the interim head coach, his mission was to hold the Mountaineers together for the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma. Everyone knows the results of that effort, a 48-28 victory that immediately caused WVU officials to drop the interim from Stewart’s title.
Now that WVU was his football program, Stewart needed to hire a staff, since all but two other members of the previous staff — defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel and defensive line coach Bill Kirelawich —followed Rich Rodriguez to Michigan, along with WVU’s entire strength and conditioning staff.
With the announcements that took place on Friday and Saturday, Stewart not only managed to fill most of the staff positions, but he also has filled them with experienced veterans, most of whose names are quite familiar to WVU fans. Saturday’s announcement that John ‘Doc’ Holliday will serve as recruiting coordinator is huge. Holliday was filling a similar role for the University of Florida, where he helped the Gators win the 2007 national championship.
Now, he’s returning to Morgantown, where he starred for the Mountaineers and spent 21 years as an assistant coach. Holliday is a master recruiter who knows Florida as well as anyone in the nation.
His hiring represents a major coup.
On Friday, Stewart announced the hirings of Steve Dunlap and David Lockwood to complete WVU’s defensive staff. Dunlap, who played for Bobby Bowden at WVU, spent 17 years as an assistant to Nehlen, including 10 seasons as WVU’s defensive coordinator. Lockwood was a member of the undefeated 1988 WVU team. He spent five seasons as defensive coordinator at Minnesota before becoming the defensive secondary coach at Kentucky this past season. If case you didn’t notice, that gives the WVU defensive staff three men who have served as coordinators at Division I schools.
Stewart also on Friday announced the hiring of running backs Chris Beatty, who had served in that capacity for Northern Ilinois last season.
Given the amount of time he had to put together a staff, Stewart has done a remarkable job. He’s managed to get several former Mountaineers to come home. While he still has some important hires to make, this staff is going to be strong.
His final mission is to save the recruiting class, many of whom either gave up on West Virginia when Rodriguez left or decided to take a wait-and-see attitude toward the Mountaineers.
Included in the latter group is Parkersburg High School 5-star lineman Josh Jenkins, rated the No. 1 senior offensive guard in America.
Stewart has made it clear his No. 1 recruiting mission is to entice Jenkins back into the Mountaineer fold. He’ll be visiting both Parkersburg High and the Jenkins household Monday.
Jenkins just got back from his weekend visit to Florida State and plans to go to Pittsburgh this weekend. He’s investigating the opportunities that most interest him. To do anything would be cheating himself.
Still, those of us who have spent time with Jenkins know his heart lies more with WVU than any other school. If Stewart can land Jenkins, he’ll have made a giant step toward accomplishing mission No. 3.
What appeared to be a gloomy situation quickly has turned into WVU looking like it can and will continue its national power status.
What happened? Bill Stewart. Thanks, coach.
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