This new beginning to the 2009 football season has a new ending. Well, I suppose it could technically be a pit stop, but the point was made.

I appreciated their effort today, and at the end of practice, we had a family discussion about what our goals are. Sometimes youngsters put the cart before the horse and we don’t want to do that. Last year we started talking about championships; well the only championship I want these guys talking about is the BIG EAST Championship. That is the only championship and the most important championship. It is our goal and that will always be our goal. You can’t do anything without the BIG EAST; you have to win it before you meet any other goals.

Already people don’t like the sound of that. I don’t see why.

Let’s be honest. It’s perfectly logical right now. This is the first time in a few years WVU has started a season excluded from the conversation about potential national champions. Heck, up until Shady McCoy and Donald Brown opted for the NFL, the Mountaineers weren’t really considered favorites for the conference title.

Too often, though, have too many teams been preoccupied with a prize just one team can ultimately have. There are dozens pretenders, a handful of contenders and a winner. And, yes, WVU has been among the preoccupied and, thus, the contenders and pretenders.

You do remember ECU, yes?

I believe that day in Greenville, our young men found out that you have to do more than put the Old Gold and Blue on and that game is when we said, “Owen Schmitt isn’t here, or Keilen Dykes isn’t here.” I think they thought that Pat (White) was going to bail them out like he always did. I believe our eyes opened that day and that’s why I try to tell the team that they better respect all and fear none- that’s what we’re all about at West Virginia. You have to start with game one.

There was nothing ceremonial about this, but it is perhaps the last step Stewart needed to take to separate himself from predecessor P-Rod. Oh, The Product said the same things. I never thought he believed them, and I understood why. He stalked that national title for a few years and got darn close and it wasn’t because he was obsessed with winning the Big East.

This is a different time and a different set of circumstances and the program is in a different place. It’s not a bad one, mind you, but it doesn’t have the proven veterans and retrievable achievements to put it on the pedestal where it once rested. In a year or two, we could be having a different conversation. For now, though, reality is what it is and the Big East is the only title Stewart and the Mountaineers need to concern themselves with this season.