Strange things going on up WVU these days

[Queen]

Bunch of weird stuff going on up here past two days.

Now why in the world would Holiday interview for the head coaches job then take the associate head coach job? The same position he held at Flordia. Unless Stewart is a genius and is amounting one heck fire of assistant coaching staff. Inside info has it that WVU is using Stewart to keep the players on the team that where on the fence about entering in to the draft early. So after they cant turn back then the guy they wanted will get the job. Stewart has one of the most dumb contracts ever signed by a head coach. All it said was $800,000 a year for the next 5 years. No buyout or no fees owed to him or to the school if he leaves or is fired. No incentives no nothing. Im hearing Stewart will not be head coach for long. Anywhere from two weeks to 1 year. Who knows it's just strange to me that Holliday would show up after being turned down last week.


WVU's Stewart announces 3 new coaches (2:51 pm)
Dave Hickman
Staff writer

MORGANTOWN -- Steve Dunlap is, indeed, coming to West Virginia as part of Bill Stewart’s new football coaching staff.
Doc Holliday should follow soon, but the paperwork just isn’t done.

Charlie Taaffe? Well, that’s still a bit of a question mark.

During a Friday afternoon teleconference in which he did not field questions, Stewart announced the hiring of Dunlap, David Lockwood and Chris Beatty. The school was expected to follow with an official release.

The announcement, though, left several questions unanswered. And at the top of the list are those regarding Holliday and Taaffe.

The Holliday issue appears only to be one of timing. A source within the university said that Holliday will be hired as the team’s associate head coach and recruiting coordinator and will coach the team’s fullbacks and tight ends, but that it can’t be announced until all the paperwork has been completed. But Holliday has already resigned his position as the associate head coach at Florida.

The Taaffe matter is a bit more complicated. Sources indicate that Stewart is committed to Taaffe as his offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach and that Taaffe has at least agreed in principal to make the move.

However, when the Gazette on Thursday morning revealed that Taaffe, Dunlap, Holliday and Lockwood were in the process of being hired by West Virginia, the story struck a nerve in Canada, where Taaffe just completed his first season as the coach of the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cat. Officials with the team scurried to find out what was happening and denied that Taaffe was leaving the team. Taaffe himself issued a rather vague statement, one which never denied his interest or intentions, but instead only clarified that he had not yet signed a contract.

The most reliable information indicates that Taaffe is trying to sort out the mess with team officials, who insist that his contract does not have an escape clause and that he is bound to the team for the next two years. Taaffe’s future at West Virginia appears tied to whether or not that can be accomplished.

As for the coaches that were announced and the one that appears forthcoming, here is the list:

-- Dunlap, who was once WVU’s all-time leading tackler and spent almost two decades at the school as an assistant coach under Don Nehlen, is returning as assistant head coach and safeties coach. Dunlap, who left WVU in 2001 when former coach Rich Rodriguez fired him, has since had stops as the defensive coordinator at Syracuse, an assistant at North Carolina State and last season as the defensive coordinator at Marshall.

-- Lockwood, a former WVU defensive back who spent one year as a Nehlen assistant in 2000, comes from Kentucky and will be the team’s secondary coach. Lockwood was formerly the defensive coordinator at Minnesota.

-- Chris Beatty will coach West Virginia’s running backs and slot receivers. Beatty spent last season at Northern Illinois and is the only member of the staff announced so far without West Virginia or WVU connections.

-- Holliday, like Dunlap a Hurricane native and former Mountaineer linebacker, will return as associate head coach, the same title he has held the past two seasons at Florida. Holliday will also serve as recruiting coordinator and coach the tight ends and fullbacks.

The new additions to the staff join defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel and defensive line coach Bill Kirelawich, who were the only Rodriguez assistants who remained on the staff.

The Mountaineers still have to hire most of the offensive staff. Assuming Holliday comes, that leaves an offensive coordinator, line coach and wide receivers coach.

[NittanyLions94]

Inside info has it that WVU is using Stewart to keep the players on the team that where on the fence about entering in to the draft early. So after they cant turn back then the guy they wanted will get the job.

Nothin' like lyin to the kids

[jpix]

As I understand it Coach Stewart can make as much or more than Fraud with the incentives. And the plan is just that, 5 years. (Or as long as we will have him) LOL

[FlyersFan]

aren't there always strange things that go on in WV............


at least you don't have 400 spanish channels. there........

[Queen]

Originally Posted by FlyersFan

aren't there always strange things that go on in WV............


at least you don't have 400 spanish channels. there........

LOL you saw that huh!!!!

Well I was wrong about the incentives there a few. I guess this mornings newspaper article sums it up:

I guess WVU made a smart move and is now spending the extra money on Assistant Coaches.


WVU couldn't have done better than Stewart
By Jack Bogaczyk
Daily Mail Sports Editor
THE subject for kicking around today is football coaching hires, and not those Bill Stewart is impressively rounding up as West Virginia sideline sidekicks.

It's about Stewart and his fellow head coaches named this winter.

A recurring premise across the Mountain State questions WVU's ability to sustain the success of three straight 11-win seasons and top-10 poll finishes.

There's more than an undercurrent in these parts that the Mountaineers could have done better than the veteran Stewart, who was picked immediately after an emotion-filled Fiesta Bowl victory over Oklahoma that he guided as an interim caretaker.

Gee, you'd have thought WVU hired Martha Stewart and the doyen showed up for the introductory press conference with a dirty doily.

More than a few WVU partisans seem to feel they should have been able to hire someone more like Don Shula, or perhaps bring a Bear or Woody or Bo or Knute back from his dirt nap to succeed Rich Rodriguez.

Well, that's not real. Look at the list of 2007-08 coaching hires (accompanying this column). It just doesn't happen - or at least very often.

There is no one West Virginia could have hired who wouldn't have created some of the same misgivings as there are about Stewart.

(As an aside to major WVU contributor Ken Kendrick, who referenced an "overmatched" Stewart derisively as a house painter: It seems to me that Michelangelo painted ceilings, and he seemed to do OK. So, Ken, please go back to printing some money and running the Diamondbacks.)

Let's use East Carolina's Skip Holtz as an example. He's a fine, fine coach, working just below the Bowl Championship Series level, and he was one of the next good names on the WVU list who would have gotten an interview.

However, Holtz lost badly (48-7) at Mountaineer Field this season, so he'd have been torpedoed for that, not to mention the fact that some wouldn't like that he's Lou's son (as if he had any control over that, and like that isn't even a bigger plus in his regard).

Above that, you're just not going to be able to hire a successful BCS coach from a building program these days. It doesn't happen - or it rarely does.

Rodriguez jumped to Michigan - a great program and a job upgrade, sure (and I still think that was more about Rodriguez's being stung by the home-state reaction to the loss to Pitt, and the fact he backed himself into a corner with WVU administrators and couldn't get out).

There's another recent example, when Dennis Franchione leaped from Alabama to Texas A&M - but there was a caveat - the Crimson Tide was on NCAA probation.

As one Division I athletic director told me recently: "The reality is that when you lose a Rich Rodriguez, you are probably going to lose the press conference for your replacement unless you can hire (Nick) Saban or Bobby Petrino."

Ohio State's last hire was a successful Division I-AA head coach (Jim Tressel). He's done darn well. LSU hired Les Miles from Oklahoma State, where he was an OK 28-21 in four years. Now, he's got the national title team.

Oklahoma's last hire was a career-long assistant (Bob Stoops). Florida won a national title last year. Urban Meyer was a rookie head coach at Bowling Green, before Utah and the Gators the same season Rodriguez started at WVU. Notre Dame and USC have former NFL coaches.

Get the picture?

I could go on, but WVU fans were in a dream world if they expected better than what they got - and that's no shot at Stewart. The Mountaineers don't play in the football century- and tradition-aged Southeastern or Big Ten conferences. Big East football isn't even two decades old.

Look at the last 10 hires before Stewart by Big East programs (when they were conference members): Brian Kelly, Steve Kragthorpe, Dave Wannstedt, Greg Robinson, Greg Schiano, Rodriguez, Larry Coker, Bobby Wallace, Tom O'Brien, Walt Harris.

It's a list (when hired) of sub-BCS head coaches, NFL refugees, quality coordinators. There are more than a few good coaches on that list, but none proven at the top level of college football when they got those jobs.

Among the 10, there were seven seasons of major college head coaching experience combined, at Central Michigan (Kelly) and Tulsa (Kragthorpe).

Seven years ago, Rodriguez, Meyer, Miles, Tressel, Schiano, Mark Richt, Ralph Friedgen and even Jim Grobe were where Stewart is now - unproven head coaching faces in big places.

Since College Football Hall of Famer Don Nehlen retired from the WVU sideline following the 2000 season, there have been 120 coaching changes in major college football (there have been about 815, seriously, since Joe Paterno took over at Penn State in 1966). Most have followed the same "new name" scheme.

Most schools can't - or won't - empty their wallets for a new coach like SMU just did for Hawaii's June Jones at $2 million annually. Rodriguez was hired by WVU for $402,000 annually. Tressel got $700,000 (plus a $100,000 signing bonus) to debut at Ohio State the same year.

They had to prove themselves on the big stage. So does Stewart - and that's fine with him and WVU.

Stewart's $800,000 start to a five-year $4.5 million contract puts him among the bottom six among 66 BCS programs in head coach's pay. He will be the lowest-paid coach in the Big East.

However, the nine-man assistant coaching staff figures to gain a few hundred thousand from its $1.235 million of Rodriguez's final season. That bottom line may be more important for the Mountaineers.

And if Stewart wins, he will be enriched by deeper incentives than Rodriguez enjoyed. If he doesn't, West Virginia will be looking for its third new coach of the 21st century.

Were the four so-called "early" candidates at WVU - Doc Holliday, Terry Bowden (nine years removed from the sideline), Butch Jones and Jimbo Fisher - that much different than Stewart?

The answer is no. The Mountaineers weren't going to get what they couldn't get. So, don't call the hiring of Bill Stewart cheap, or off-the-wall, or uninspired, or uninspiring.

Call it typical. In major college football these days, that's what it was.

[MacDaddy]

-- Dunlap, who was once WVU’s all-time leading tackler and spent almost two decades at the school as an assistant coach under Don Nehlen, is returning as assistant head coach and safeties coach. Dunlap, who left WVU in 2001 when former coach Rich Rodriguez fired him, has since had stops as the defensive coordinator at Syracuse, an assistant at North Carolina State and last season as the defensive coordinator at Marshall.


I'm curious. Marshall allowed 34.25 pts per game this past year versus a very weak schedule. What is WVU gaining?

[CuseFan10]

Haha, Queen used the phrase "heck fire"...

Maybe I'm wrong, but if someone, anyone, signs a 5 year contract and you get fired/terminated - you still get your money, no? It's a contract. They would be breaking your contract. At worst, they would have to at least negotiate a buyout, no?

Also, what kids did WVU have that were leaving early? Pat White ain't going anywhere because he has no position in the NFL since he has a noodle for an arm. He would be an RB I'd guess? Slaton is coming out regardless of who the coach is, if that's his choice. Who else would they "need to keep from leaving for the NFL"? Just curious, thanks!!!

[JohnnyMapleLeaf]

Originally Posted by CuseFan10

Haha, Queen used the phrase "heck fire"...

lol...

[Queen]

Originally Posted by MacDaddy

I'm curious. Marshall allowed 34.25 pts per game this past year versus a very weak schedule. What is WVU gaining?

Marshall's recruiting has sucked for a very long time. He did a good job at WVU before Coach Rod fired him. The last good players Marshall recruited was Leftwich and company since then terrible job talking kids in to playing there. Now Im no expert in this at all but I think the Move to Conference USA hurt Marshall. Really. They got too big for the own good. Was very easy to talk people in to going to Marshall when the ruled Mac. It will take at least 10 years for them to be a middle of the road team in CUSA.

[joepa66]

That's some weird crap about throwing the players a bone...namely Stewart, in the vein of hoping to keep guys from going somewhere else. Seems to me they put a finger in the dam so it would pacify things until they got some "brand names" on their staff......I wonder what Holliday's clause says about becoming the head man!

[joepa66]

The plot thickens.......

What the heck is all this mess with destroying files by Rodriguez.....sure does tarnish his image and does Michigan care what's now going on?! Probably loaded with data on steroid use, etc.

[JohnnyMapleLeaf]

Word up here is Charlie Taffe....head coach of Hamilton in the CFL might leave the league to become Offensive Coordinator of the Mountaineers.

Saskatchewan head coach, Kent Austin just left the Riders to become Ole Miss Offensive Coordinator yesterday...

[BoKnows]

Game was moved to Thurs Oct 23

Scary...thursday night game in Morgantown. Good thing I like Dogs on Thurs nights as I assume the dog will be a Tiger on this thursday night!!

Better than 50/50 chance I will be making my first voyage to the Mountaineer state for this one!

[Queen]

Originally Posted by BoKnows

Game was moved to Thurs Oct 23

Scary...thursday night game in Morgantown. Good thing I like Dogs on Thurs nights as I assume the dog will be a Tiger on this thursday night!!

Better than 50/50 chance I will be making my first voyage to the Mountaineer state for this one!

Just depends on how good of season each team has before this game.

I was thinking of going up to this game also. Sure fire way of WVU getting bet if I show up. LOL