GLENDALE, Ariz. — GLENDALE, Ariz. – A new word has been added to the lexicon of West Virginia football over the past couple of weeks while getting ready for Wednesday’s Fiesta Bowl showdown with Oklahoma, a word that seldom entered any discussion of the program under Rich Rodriguez.
That word is fun.
Under Rodriguez playing football was many things. It was intense. It was fiery. It was driven.
The motto that Rodriguez pushed was “Play like your hair is on fire” but having one’s hair on fire is anything but fun.
Oh, the program was successful, certainly, but maybe not as successful as it could be. Each year there was that one loss, that game they shouldn’t lose, that game they couldn’t lose, yet that was a game they did lose.
Pitt, twice over the past few years. South Florida. Louisville. Cincinnati. Maryland.
They didn’t lose those games because they faced better talent. Perhaps it was more that they were uptight, tense, playing in fear of losing rather than playing to win.
All that has changed under the interim regime of Bill Stewart, who was picked to serve as coach for this bowl game after Rodriguez dropped the rope and spotted his ball in Ann Arbor, Mich.
You can hear the players talk about the change but talk is nothing more than that, talk, as Rodriguez proved when he walked away from his vow to remain at his alma mater for a long time the first time he didn’t get what he wanted.
Seeing is believing and it was hard to believe what you were looking at during Monday’s media day at the futuristic University of Phoenix stadium.
First of all, there was Johnny Dingle, the athletic defensive lineman, who showed up here in the Arizona desert not with his hair on fire, but instead, covered by a sombrero.
One suspects Rodriguez would have frowned at such antics … and that was only getting the festivities started.
But what showed the looseness of the atmosphere best came just as Stewart was about to put an end to his 30-minute monologue on everything from chips – Tostitos, of course – to being guarded by a pair of state policemen as most head coaches are to how good well behaved his team has been to …
Well, you get the point. Billy Stewart was just being Billy Stewart and the Valley of the Sun was great but he sure did miss those rolling hills of West Virginia.
As he was wrapping up (is that rapping up?) he spotted his flamboyant and ebullient placekicker Pat McAfee. If anyone was worried whether McAfee had recovered from his problems against Pitt, he should have been around for the act that was about to follow.
Once this hits TV, expect the Comedy Channel to be booking them.
McAfee grabbed the WBOY, Channel 12 microphone, got the TV cameras rolling and welcomed everyone to “The Pat McAfee Show”.
Here is an edited version of how the first “Pat McAfee Show” went.
McAFEE: “Welcome back to the Pat McAfee Show, broadcasting from the University of Phoenix Stadium. We are accompanied by the man of the hour, the Tower of Power, too sweet to be sour, Coach Bill Stewart.”
After some small talk, Stewart asked McAfee to talk into the stadium microphone so the gathered media could hear.
McAFEE: “This is for the Pat McAfee Show (pointing to the WBOY microphone). These people aren’t paying. (Laughter) These people are paying me. I want to know how you really feel now that you got the reigns of the horse right now. How do you feel? How are kyou going to respond whenever all those critics are knocking us down? You know you are the man?”
STEWART: “I am going to be very, very loose because I am blessed to be the leading the best dog-gone team. Cub and Boy Scout honor.”
McAFEE: “Coach, how has the desert treated you so far? There’s a song, ‘I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name.’ How do you feel to be ‘out of the rain.’?”
STEWART: “I feel really good. We are in the Valley of the Sun. The rolling hills, I miss. The season winds and blowing, I miss the sleet a little bit, but I do like the Valley of the Sun. It has been a great change of pace.”
And so it went for 10 minutes of so, completely out of character for anything that you ever saw with Rodriguez, who was always the whole show.
If the coaching change has affected the Mountaineers, it has loosened them up, turned from autotons into human beings who are quick with a joke, quick with a smile.
Stewart hasn’t turned the team loose, he’s simply turned the team’s spirit loose with his honesty, with his approach.
You ask them if they have a favorite Stewart expression and they do.
“Boy scout’s honor,” they say.
“He’ll tell you something like curfew is midnight. He’ll say, be on time. If not, I’ll send you home, Boy Scout’s honor,’” said senior safety Eric Wicks.
“This week he’s been telling us about ‘The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine,’” senior fullback Owen Schmitt said.
The way Stewart tells it, the Mountaineers are like the Lost Dutchman, who was Jacob Waltz, who took the secret of his “gold mine” to his grave in 1891. Even today, treasure hunters scour the mountains to find his lost gold mine near Apache Junction here, much as WVU is seeking its own gold mine in the Arizona in its game against Oklahoma.
Wicks noted that football had become fun once again for the Mountaineers.
“When you respect someone it goes a lot farther than when you fear someone,” Wicks said. “Respect is him for what he is, not for his yelling.”
“He’s the glue that kept us together,” added Schmitt. “He’s a man of his word, a genuine guy.”
WTF-s/i do>hehe.+8 SOUNDS AWFULLY ENTICING
Seems like we are on the same side most other times this year. Either way GL bro, and keep up the good work! Have enjoyed all the write-ups and rankings you have provided! 
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