West Virginia Football: Dear Bill Stewart

Dear Bill Stewart,

Following the 2007 Big East play, West Virginia was headed to the Tostito’s Fiesta Bowl… without a head coach. Good ol’ Rich Rodriguez had bolted to Michigan and left his Mountaineers high and dry. WVU appointed a nice lad by the name of Bill Stewart as the interim head coach for that game, and the Mountaineers came out fired up, rolling over the much favored Oklahoma Sooners 48–28. Not long after that same man was named head coach of the West Virginia Mountaineers.

2008 saw Pat White returning for his final season, WVU was ranked No. 8 to start the year and had high expectations. However, WVU would struggle, getting beat by East Carolina in a 24–3 embarrassment, then again the following week against Colorado where we first really got to see just how bad of decisions Stewart could make.

Rich Rodriguez took talent that nobody else wanted and turned them into national contenders who could have beaten anybody any given week. Today, Bill Stewart has better recruits yet can’t beat Syracuse and UConn. I’m not taking anything away from either team, they played well and did what they needed to do. The fact is, out coaching Bill Stewart is like a non handicapped man winning a gold medal at the Special Olympics.

2010 is looking to be a total embarrassment for WVU football. We are the last team in the weakest conference in college football. We have a very, very good defense that comes out weekly and does its job, so it looks like Jeff Casteel is getting his job done.

However, Stewart, Mullen, and Johnson are all three having issues.

Now, Stewart I know you change plays as they come down through your headset, so who’s calling the stupid plays, is it you, or is it the Wake Forest quarterback coach you appointed your offensive coordinator?

Johnson, your offensive line can’t block to save their lives, they commit stupid penalties almost every game (great job, you avoided false starts in your loss to UConn).

This years team has so many explosive weapons that can be utilized. Noel Devine, Jock Sanders, Tavon Austin, Bradley Starks and many more. We have what was said to be one of the best offensive lines in recent memory when we came into this season.

I’ve seen some great things at times, but I’ve also seen a team that lacks confidence, lacks direction and the will to play. I’ve seen Geno Smith make some great plays this year, but I’ve also seen him and other players make some terrible decisions. At the end of the day, what happens on the field is out of your control, however all of this comes back to COACHING.

I also understand you don’t want to run up the score on the lads every week, you hype everybody we play like we are playing a team full of Tim Tebow’s, but guess what, before you came here we could have rolled Tebow had we had the chance.

Now when you get a 14 point lead you immediately start running out the clock. I’m sorry, but in college football a 14 point lead is never secure, it does not make your fans feel good about it, and it’s down right boring to watch. I have been telling people since the beginning of the year that a team was going to come back on us, and we would be unable to score, and guess what, it’s happened the past two weeks now.

I’ve seen players look over to the sidelines and look confused as the play was called in, wondering why are we doing this?

Example, running Devine up the middle on third-and-22. Why would you even attempt that? Every defense we play has keyed on Devine all year, you add an offensive line that can’t block and it’s a sure fire road to failure.

I can’t pin point the problem, but it’s not the talent level, it’s the guys calling the plays and those coaching. Being a head coach it is your responsibility to fix those things, if that means replacing Mullen then go for it, I don’t care how nice of a guy he is.

If that means stepping down, then please do so. You told us when you came in that if you felt you couldn't get the job done you’d step down and hand the team to someone else. Just last week you insisted you were getting the job done.

I’m sorry, but the way this team has played since you took over is not getting the job done. I don’t care what your record is right now, when we are the weakest team in the Big East, that’s a huge problem. You can hype up our opponents all you want and throw your players under the bus after each loss, but please do us all a favor and make changes.

I would not be the least bit shocked to see our defense start playing with less heart now. Why should they play mistake free football weekly when the offense can’t even score? They are busting their butts keeping us in games and we continue to fall flat on our face. Jeff Casteel could end up booting it out of town next year if an offer comes up, and I would not blame him one bit if that happened.

I know you love this program, but please do what’s right, do what’s best for this team.

Sincerely,

West Virginia