WVU Football: Savoring the Fiesta Bowl

I’m certain my tens of readers have wondered where I’ve been, as I've thus far failed to write on West Virginia’s glorious Fiesta Bowl victory over Oklahoma last Wednesday.The answer is, I was at the game, in what turned out to be the best travel decision of my life—and then took a couple of days to cruise up to Sedona, which aside from being magnificent, is supposed to be a place of energy vortices that will help you find inner peace and become spiritually sublime.

After the Fiesta Bowl win, I don’t think I could have been more spiritually sublime.

Where to start?

During the first half, I was a little tense, but not as much as I figured I would be. I went to Arizona with the hope that WVU could hang with the higher-rated Sooners. I wasn't worried about the Mountaineers’ mental state—it was clear from the days leading up to the game that coach Bill Stewart had the team loose, united, and ready to play.

I was, however, concerned that they would be outmanned by the Sooners, especially after reading about OU's monstrous offensive line and All-American defenders.

But it was clear by halftime that WVU was the better team. They played mistake-free, and were obviously much faster on defense. The concern was that Oklahoma’s O-line would adjust to the WVU blitzes, or that the emotion that carried Eric Wicks and others to the backfield would wear off, but neither happened.

The truth was that WVU’s speedy defense ran around Oklahoma’s fat guys, who had no choice but to hold. Johnny Dingle was held another half-dozen times that weren’t called.

On offense, by halftime, I thought, “The 2006 offensive line finally showed up.”

I've written that the O-line was largely to blame for Steve Slaton’s down year, and that Noel Devine was having more success because he’s smaller and quicker laterally—something Slaton himself said after the game.

By halftime, it was clear that the WVU O-line was manhandling the Sooners’ defensive front, partly thanks to new right tackle Stephen Maw, and partly thanks to the fact that center Mike Dent wasn't snapping balls over Pat White’s head.

But by halfway through the fourth quarter, I was speechless.

Moments after Bob Stoops’ strange onside-kick call (my friend at the game noted that Stoops coached the third quarter like it was the fourth quarter, and the fourth like it was the third), Devine scooted untouched into the end zone below my seats, which were in the lower row of the upper deck at about the 5-yard line.

Very good seats, it turned out.

Three minutes later, Darius Reynaud was zipping around the left end in front of me and “frog flopping” into the end zone. If you watch the replay, you'll see that Reynaud put such a high-speed, ankle-breaking move on the Oklahoma defender that he almost fell down. But he recovered his footing while maintaining a beeline to the end zone.

In the fourth quarter, when White dropped back and fired a 30-yard strike to Tito Gonzalez (TITO-FREAKIN-GONZALEZ!), I was waiting for the ball to pop loose. When it didn’t, and when the Oklahoma defender slid down Gonzalez, I stood up and tried to shout...but couldn’t.

When was the last time you saw a WVU wide receiver running 50 yards absolutely alone, continuing to look back over each shoulder, waiting for a defender who never arrives?

When Devine sealed the rout with his weaving 65-yard touchdown run (“running between Oklahoma defenders like they were traffic cones,” someone wrote), I was spent.

Everyone who follows WVU football knows this is what the offense is capable of when it’s clicking. When the offensive line does what it’s supposed to do, the Mountaineers produce a tsunami of points. When it’s doesn't, and when the offense is gummed up behind the line (South Florida, Pitt), WVU stalls like a Duster with a balky clutch.

Devine’s Fiesta Bowl was Slaton’s Sugar Bowl of two years ago—a national introduction and a table-setter for the next season.

As for Slaton, I hope he comes back. I'd written earlier that if he returns, he’ll be next year’s Owen Schmitt, only faster. No, he won’t deliver the crushing blocks that Schmitt did, but not every block needs to plant the defender in the turf. Further, having Slaton and Devine in the backfield creates a two-tailback offense, adding a dimension of speed.

And I truly think that Slaton will rebound next year—if Stephen Maw stays on the line and relegates Selvish Capers back to backup.

I ran into Mountaineer fans in Sedona and on the flight home (all of them wearing their WVU gear; hey, it’s a victory lap), and most were skeptical of the hiring of Coach Stew. They figured next year would be fine, but worried about down the road, wondering if Stewart could recruit like Rodriguez.

The truth is, Coach Stew’s bravura performance after the Pitt game and in the Fiesta Bowl backed WVU administrators into a PR corner—how could they NOT hire him? And it’s not like they had a well-oiled coach-search machine running in the first place.

So Coach Stew gets handed the keys to a Ferrari next season. The Mountaineers may finish this season in the Top Five, and will almost certainly will start next season there. Most of the offense is coming back—Slaton and Darius Reynaud, we’re waiting on—but the defense will require rebuilding.

As of this writing, Coach Stew is trying to keep defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel.

At the top of Stew’s shopping list is a genius offensive coordinator and a recruiter who can own Florida and make inroads elsewhere in the South.

As a fan, I’m happy to get behind Stew. I buy his aw-shucks routine because the man seems sincere. Rodriguez, for all his gifts, was prickly and a shouter. And, as a journalist, I hated—absolutely HATED—his trait of never letting a reporter finish a question before he started answering it.

It’s rude, a signal of disdain for the questioner, and often an indicator of Asperger’s Syndrome. (Look it up.)

Besides, as I had written, it was time for Rodriguez to adapt his spread, and it was unclear, at least from the Pitt game, that he was willing to do so.

During the Fiesta Bowl, WVU unveiled a nice little running back drag route we haven’t seen before. Who knows—under Coach Stew, WVU might actually pass to the tight end.And I can’t wrap up this overlong piece without stating the obvious: There’s no one in college football like Pat White.

He was brilliant throughout, as sharp as I’ve seen him (after a couple of his balls fluttered in the first quarter), and that designed rollout-run that netted him some 40 yards was simply electrifying.

Of the Oklahoma defender suddenly facing him, I thought, “Congratulations—you’re one-on-one with Pat White.”

This is the most satisfying win I can remember in a long, long time, topping even the 2006 Sugar Bowl.