West Virginia Hires Holgorsen, Pushes Bill Stewart Out the Door

West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck just pulled off something that makes him seem more like Oliver Stone.

The Mountaineers' first-year athletic director has completed something out of a Cold War novel.

He has basically shown current football coach Bill Stewart the door, supposedly after this upcoming season, and introduced former Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen as the school's head coach in waiting.

Stay with us on this one.

First, the Mountaineers are 9-3 with a chance to finish the season with 10 wins when they face North Carolina in the Champs Sports Bowl. That gives Stewart three straight seasons of nine wins or more.

So what does Luck do? He orchestrates this covert, behind-the-scenes hiring of Holgorsen without Stewart's knowledge.

Holgorsen was officially announced today and he'll take over offensive coordinator duties after the bowl game and then become the head coach after the 2012 season.

See ya Bill. There's some sorta "position" for you elsewhere in the athletic department.

Holgorsen, like every other new hire, gave 'em the old "my goal is to win a national championship at West Virginia" new hire speech.

Perhaps he should have added, "I'll be looking over coach Stewart's shoulder this coming season. Anything good that happens, it's because I'm here, and if anything goes wrong, blame him. I'm not the head coach until 2012."

Luck opened the checkbook to pay Holgorsen $800,000 in 2012. Stewart makes $900,000. Holgorsen bumps to $1.4 million in 2012. He was making $360,000 as the offensive coordinator at Okie State.

Sure, Mountaineer fans were grumbling this year. It was a weak year for the Big East and no one saw UConn coming to claim the BCS bid. Surely that's what sent Luck into the secret bunker for all this under the table wheeling and dealing.

Holgorsen was in the mix at Pitt and that certainly played a part in Mr. Luck's backroom bargaining.

Home attendance at West Virginia was off this year, but that area, like most of the nation, is still battling with the economy, so was Stewart to blame for that?

Yes, the West Virginia offense could use some higher octane.

But the manner in which Stewart was thrown under the Luck Bus is really kind of stinky, isn't it?

After all, the department had just sent out a "brag" release that the football program has a 90-percent graduation rate.

Let's get this straight—three seasons with nine wins per, maybe 10 this year and a 90-percent graduation rate.

Seems like giving Bill Stewart this slam upside the head, and a blind-sided one at that, wasn't real kosher.

If Luck wanted Stewart out, then just make it all clean and simple and install Holgorsen now.

Did Bill Stewart deserve better in all of this?

No such Luck.