Bill Stewart just lost a job that many people believe he never deserved. That doesn’t make his former boss any less of a coward, or his successor any less of a drunken buffoon.
Nor does it make the West Virginia offense any more exciting, which was the catalyst behind AD Oliver Luck’s misguided decision to fire Stewart but keep him on the staff for one more year to groom his replacement, heavy-drinking Dana Holgorsen, because Stewart is just too nice of a guy to terminate the old-fashioned way.
Suddenly, the tenure of the coach everyone loves to hate ended in the biggest college football fiasco this side of Ohio State. Stewart Gate might end up costing all three stooges their jobs, and you could argue they don’t deserve anything less.
You could argue Luck should be the first casualty of this fiasco instead of the last, which seems his more likely destiny. You could also make a case for Stewart’s legacy at West Virginia being one of the coach who was both hired and fired too soon.
West Virginia football hasn’t had this much upheaval since, well, the last time they made a coaching change, when Rich Rodriguez left town for Michigan and set off an uproar that could be heard from Morgantown in Ann Arbor.
Stewart was seen as a savior in those days. Amid all the controversy and negative publicity, he took a downtrodden Mountaineers team and throttled heavily favored Oklahoma 48-28 in the Fiesta Bowl.
I’ll never forget all the sideline shots of Stewart slapping his knees and cackling wildly every time West Virginia made a good play. It was as if you were watching a proud Grandpa celebrate Junior hitting one of those Little League “home runs,” in which a four-base error is glorified as something else.
Stewart got more than a memory from the game … he got his dream job. The next day, West Virginia announced it was no longer considering other candidates for the job, ultimately deciding hiring anyone other than Stewart would be a bad PR move, and that was the last thing they needed.
The jovial, folksy Stewart was easy to like. He never had a negative word to say about his team or –seemingly – anyone, and his down-home demeanor was a welcome sight in the cut-throat world of big-time college football.
The problem was, his teams were supremely boring. He took the spread offense that Rich Rod cultivated and put handcuffs on it, and he seemed to underachieve with teams that had incredibly gifted athletes such as Pat White, Steve Slaton and Noel Devine.
That said, here’s something you might not have known: the record books will show Stewart is the school’s most successful coach in at least the past half century. At 28-12, his 70 percent winning clip edges out that of Rich Rod (60-26, 69.7 percent) and the legendary Don Nehlen (202-128-8, 59 percent), who spent two decades at the school.
The 59-year-old Stewart won exactly nine games in each of his three seasons, not spectacular but far from a disaster. He led them to as many BCS title games – zero – as Rodriguez, won at a similar rate and came with less baggage.
The Mountaineers just looked far less aesthetically pleasing while doing it. Fans, media, followers and bettors couldn’t help think, while the record was solid, watching West Virginia always sort of left you wanting. That is, wanting something more than the nation’s No. 2-ranked defense and a grind-it-out offense.
On a gambling note, Stewart was 17-18-1 ATS. West Virginia never was good as a big favorite, but played pretty well as an underdog and short favorite. Last year, even the oddsmakers turned against old coach Stew, and there was major value on the Mountaineers when they were favored by 5 points or fewer against Cincinnati, Louisville and Pitt.
Luck, the father of Stanford star Andrew Luck, decided to make a splash in his first year at the school. Figuring everyone loves to watch a team like Oklahoma State score touchdowns in bunches, he plucked Holgorsen, who turns 40 in a week, from the Cowboys’ staff and immediately named him Stewart’s successor.
Trouble was, Stewart wasn’t ready to leave. It was tantamount to your wife telling you she wants a divorce, but needs you stick around and show her new boyfriend how to mow the lawn and operate the sprinklers until he gets up to speed.
It was a recipe for disaster, and the first scorched entrée just got pulled out of the oven. Stewart was let go Friday after reports surfaced he persuaded newspaper reporters to “dig up” dirt on Holgorsen.
Those who obliged didn’t have to look far. Though the coach-in-waiting made headlines in May when he was booted from a local casino for being intoxicated and disruptive, turns out it was far from an isolated incident.
Reports now surface that Holgorsen has been involved in six such incidents since he arrived at the West Virginia campus in January – that’s six in six months -- giving the school a lethal combination of bad publicity along with negative stereotype reinforcement of the state’s residents.
But you can bet if Holgorsen goes six-for-six on the football field, and scores a whole bunch of points in the process, his transgressions – and Stewart – will be forgotten.