Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which is swollen with an extraordinary week of news and opinion and didn’t need to sit around this morning wondering if WVU is trying to have more kickers/punters on scholarship than running backs/slot receivers. I guess it really is an area of concern for Oll Stewart.

And that’s your bookend this week, one in which we learned about coaching salaries, Stew’s slightly-thinner contract, a difference of opinion about a practice facility, a new and somewhat proven kicker, no WVU-Florida basketball game, the JUCO player of the year coming to the basketball program, intriguing negotiations for the Coal Bowl and no WVU-Florida basketball game. To think, I fled the country a year ago and all I missed was Larry Aschebrook getting thrown under a bus.

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, please be mindful of what others might think.

Jeff in Akron said:

Okay, Mike, you’ve piqued my interest in WVU baseball. I gave up on the product the MLB is marketing a long, long time ago. This is WVU, not MLB, so I’ll do my best to keep up.

Just completed a search of Hawley Field to find out why it was called Hawley Field. As you, and probably everbody else here, know the field was named for Roy “Legs” Hawley. However, did you know that the Southern Conference Offensive Player of the Year award is still named after non other than, Roy M. “Legs” Hawley?

So, a WVU team is winning on a field named after a truly great West Virginian. Where the heck have I been?

It’s a tradition full of fun facts. And I’m glad I piqued your interest. If it takes a village to raise a child, does it take a child to raise a village?

Alli said:

This is why I haven’t let myself get too excited about this team. Notre Dame is typically a strong contender in the Big East, though they’re down this season too. The games at USF next week are the real test.  

Keep sleeping … but also follow this weekend’s series here. 

Country Roads said:

If WVU wants to compete with the big boys, this is the kind of money it has to expect to pay its coaches. Tops in the Big East? It better be. But it still lags behind SEC schools, OSU, Michigan, Notre Dame, etc. For the amount of money the football program brings in, paying a coaching staff $3 million is a fantastic investment.  

No argument. In fact …

Alli said:

Good point Country Roads. It also makes it a lot easier to pay assistants that much when you don’t have to pay the head coach $2M a year.

Or when  — what? OK, fine …

Birch said:

It also helps when two of your former coaches are paying you $5.5 mil.   

My turn? Cool. From the very beginning, Stewart said if given the resources, he’d pull together an excellent coaching staff and then let them work. I don’t see how, given the situation he inherited, you can argue against what he’s done and make a sensible case. To that, the guy’s not interested in his salary as much as he is with the compensation and continuity for his staff.

Foul Shot said:

Interesting article in the Daily Mail regarding the lack of an extension or rollover for Stew.
It made it appear that 2009-2010 will go a long way toward deciding Stew’s future. That would seem accurate in that if the slide continues, maybe someone new will be considered.
There were other factors considered in the article other than the loss total.
Should make for plenty of discussion here.

Those other factors do matter. And remember, he signed a six-year deal after agreeing to the five-year contract. So, in a way, he now begins his five-year deal. As for the slide, is 9-4 a slide? Perhaps. I think the slide would be 8-5 or 7-6 after the 9-4. Then there’d be some concern. As for “plenty of discussion” … ya think?

X-Rayted said:

It would be hard to justify renewing/restructuring Slingblade’s contract since he’s proven that he can what? 1. Coach the special teams to the bottom percentile of D1 teams. 2. Repeatedly make an ass out of himself and my beloved alma mater with his ignorant and confusing comments, rants, and actions. 3. Hire an offensive coordinator that had never called a play, and as a result, completely neuter an offense and Pat White’s final season, both of which could have been truly special. 4. Show WVU fans the true value of quality assistants and recruiters to mask the coaching ineptitude at the head of the program, (Thank you assistant coaches, you actually earn your paychecks). 5. Take a program that was on the brink of contending yearly for both BCS bowls and national championships, to hoping we make the Meineke Car Care Bowl, and thinking that it was a “successful year.” It’s no secret that I can’t stand Bill Stewart, but honestly, maybe when we quit nickel and diming our way through this thing and pay some head coach $2-3 mil a year, we will get the return on all of our investments, both financially and emotionally. And then maybe Stew can twitter about how unbelievably out of his element he is/was (cue the Big Lebowski music now).  

Fair enough. I don’t think No. 1 was all him. He coached them to the top of the Big East a few times and near the top of the country before … and the scheme never changed. Players did … and WVU did have some big injuries on kickoff coverage last year. No. 2 is merely opinion and I don’t think that factors too much into his contract status. No. 3 was relevant, but as you complain about Mullen’s previous experience, you must also remember it. It takes time to grow into it and it’s not easy when the pressure mounts almost immediately. No. 4 is virtually a complement to Stewart, if even a back-handed one. No. 5 is true, if only for a year, but given the apparent weakness of the Big East this season, there’s no reason to think WVU isn’t on the brink of the BCS again. But is money going to fix anything? You definitely can’t get a big-time coach and a big-time staff and you yourself said the assistants matter. Say you fire Stewart and break the bank on a new coach. You’re paying two coaches because Stewart has a big buyout. And who’s to say the big name/money coach wants to come here, given the school just canned the coach after a really brief stay? One year isn’t nearly enough time. Is two?

overtheSEC said:

That’s it X Rayted. Throw more money at it. That’s worked well down here in SEC country.
I felt you missed one of the major points of the article which I interpreted as, only by “nickel and diming” (to quote you) at the head coach level can WVU afford and retain such qualified assistant coaches.
If you want to pay head coaches $2-$3 mill a year, expect high assistant coach turnover with WVU’s budget–which is fine where it is.
And to say that our program was “contending yearly for national championships” is slightly delusional. We had great personnel and a scheme that accentuated all their skills. If anything, you could argue that poor head coaching kept us from what could have been our most successful year when we lost 13-9. You make it sound like we we’re Nebraska in the 90s. We had a string of good years and it sounds like we’re getting better talent for the future than we’ve ever had. Time will tell. Not one season.

Change in the ranks right now doesn’t really accomplish anything. It would do perhaps irreparable damage to the program and the personnel and the recruiting and the fundraising and … you get the point. If WVU wants status quo on Stewart’s contract, that’s fine, too. If Stewart can coerce the brass to sweeten the deal with a really good season, everyone wins. As is the case with so many things, it’s decided on the field.

JP said:

I’m a regular reader of this blog but I must have missed the memo on what OII Stewart stands for. Can anyone please explain?

Yes. 

Country Roads said:

I’m generally supportive of Pastilong and the WVU athletic department, but this baffles me. I understand that times are tough financially, but the programs that share the Coliseum are long overdue for a practice facility. They have been successful in recent years despite the lack of one, but isn’t it time to reward that success? It’s not like Huggins is a small-time coach. He knows what he is doing both on and off the court. WVU should find a way to get this done.

I don’t think there’s a very big chasm here. Everyone agrees it has to be done and, in a sense, it will be done. The difference seems to be how much money is needed to begin construction. There has to be an easily attained common ground. Right?

Foul Shot said:

Hope this disagreement does not have Huggy polishing his resume.
Sure would hate to see him pull a ProdRod over facilities improvement issues with the Athletic Department.
But, with the success from the last few years, there has to be a few bucks around to get this facility built already.

He’s not going anywhere, and isn’t it refreshing to have a coach who doesn’t pull the power play?

Dave said:

Pastilong has a hall-of-fame coach at his disposal, coaching at a discount rate, who is producing results even before “his” recruits get to town.

I hope this doesn’t get screwed up. There has to be something else that is not being discussed or printed for this to be an issue.

I think there’s something out there. I do.

overtheSEC said:

Could this be a ploy to get some more donors and have others front load their pledges a bit more?
In other news, it’s tougher to borrow money now than when other renovations were completed, so it’s harder to do anything without ca$h in hand, in general.

And that’s what I think is happening here. I’d imagine that though all of this news people are now seeing what, if anything, they can do to help or to at least ensure their pledged dollars can be counted upon to go forward. Really, you think people won’t be prepared to help Huggs when he rolls into Charleston for the Coaching Caravan next week?

WVUeer220 said:

It’s interesting to see how the figure on the cost has ballooned. When this first came to light, Russ Sharp was quoted as saying the facility would total between $16 and $20 million. $26 million isn’t exactly a small jump from there. I’d be interested to know what happened to make that occur.

Regardless, the issues surrounding the gathering of funds remain. There certainly seems to be a bit of contentiousness, with Pastilong insistent on more of the money being in hand before getting things started and Huggins telling a reporter than his boss’s threshold is “unrealistic.” People have been saying this has been simmering for some time, but having it out in the open that Huggs disagrees with Pastilong takes it to a different level.

Contentious is a strong word, but I guess there is a line in the sand now, right? You’d hope lessons of the past keep history from repeating itself here.

Erinn said:

So does this mean the mandatory “donation” for season football tickets on top of the actual cost of the season ticket will increase again?  

You better hope they don’t read this! 

Latin Hillbilly said:

I have a serious question given our propensity for odd pronunciation (e.g., my grandma, who I love dearly, always calls it “Warshington,” DC):

Can we get a phonetic pronunciation of deniz’s last name? Is it Ka-Lick-Li?

I’m going on what I got from his MSA coach — Kill-ICK-lee. As for those dunks, no, they weren’t terribly impressive. I did find one that made my eyes pop a little. And not only can Dalton Pepper dunk, but this kid can play. I mean, really, really play. This was sent to me from “someone” and the email, in relation to everyone’s fawning over Mitchell, said (sic) “your gonna feel bad about the way you overlooked this kid – but so will everyone else”

Birch said:

Mike,
You talked to the guy…How would you describe his personality? Seems thoughtful enough. Yes, I feel slightly less of a man typing this.  

I’d say Casey Mitchell is driven and humble and absolutely sure he’s going to make a difference. I’m not alone on this, either.  

skin said:

I saw that young man play on several occasions while he was in high school & in junior college. He is a beast! As a matter of fact, I saw him BAPTISE Kentucky star Jody Meeks for 34pt in an All-Star game their senior year in high school. Jody Meeks was guarding him for the majority of the game. They both took home MVP honors for their respective teams. I also saw Casey give Michigan State’s Chris Allen 40 when they meet in a Xmas Tournament in Atlanta during Casey’s sr yr (Allen was a jr at the time)! By the way latin hillbilly, the guy just turned 21 in january, he was being recruited by huggins as a jr in high school when huggins was coaching at cincinnati. He did not pass georgia’s state graduation test which caused him to go to prep school for a yr which eventually led him to chipola college where he ended up being the D-1 national player of the year

jmbwvu said:

I don’t think a single person would feel bad or lose a bit of sleep if will thomas wasn’t on that team next year…good riddance  

Oh, come one. I can think of one person who’d feel bad. 

jeff said:

i would feel bad if will thomas lost his scholarship. he worked hard in his time here. being told you’re not good enough is a tough pill for a 19-21 year old to swallow. i would definitly feel bad to see a mountaineer’s dream cut short. im surprised you, a mountaineer yourself, would show such a lack of concern for a student athlete at our school. these guys arent pro’s. who knows if he can even afford college without a scholarship. i wish the best to all the guys.

Well said, Jeff. Yeah, it’s about wins and losses and getting the job done you have to respect the process. I think the kids get it, too, and know they have a certain responsibility they have to live up to as a scholarship student-athlete. They probably see it coming, too, and some would probably be happier playing somewhere else instead of sitting in the same place. Yet to be told you’re not quite good enough, not as good as someone coming to replace you, no longer needed … that has to hurt. And let’s not forget Huggins, who has to be the guy to make that decision and announcement.  

Country Roads said:

It’s been widely rumored that Proby is gone, too. Folks on the message boards were saying that Dee’s facebook status mentioned “being gone” after the season, or something to that effect.

Amazing. And I’ve been told this is indeed true.

Dave said:

Mike, nice tie-in to the quote.

Otherwise, I’m having a hard time understanding the need for Twitter, etc. I started out reading the Daily Mail, the Gazette, the TimesWV, and the Dominion Post. The reports are about the same, so I don’t need to read all of them anymore (especially online), but I do like this blog which gives some interesting information not in the regular press. But the Twitter posts from Stew are basically the same as what’s being reported in the papers, so why waste this guy’s time (yes, I know someone else is posting them)? Maybe I’m just old (39)?

Regarding some of the other comments, I can understand a 6am practice or two, but if you’re trying to get your team to play at noon then why do it at 6am? I work in IT and have been called at all hours. Frankly, 6am is about the easiest time to adjust to something because it means that I got some sleep. 11pm is hard because I am ready for bed and not wanting remain up. 3am is hard because I just got into deep sleep and now have to think on my feet. But you know what? Those odd calls and/or long hours are relatively easy to do because of the adrenaline rush that something has to happen. However, they can sometimes completely wreck the rest of the next day, especially if I think about studying for class like a student would do. Why not practive on Thursday nights, Saturdays at noon, 4pm, or 7pm, when they’re going to be playing a game?

Stew Twittered one rule on their “Rules for Living,” it would be interesting to know the other 9. I enjoy passing statements like that (from a variety of sources) on to my kids.

I guess this is anti-anti-Twitter (yes, I used a double-negative to get to a positive, but hey, I’m an IT guy and we’re just strange that way), why does Stew repeatedly refer to his wife as “his bride” after all of these years? I think that by now, it’s pretty clear they’re together.

It’s very hard not to get excited about next season because there was such a curveball thrown with the lack of offensive production (versus the hype) last year that it’s difficult to discern whether what is being communicated is going to reflect on the field next year or not. I am interested to see the team, but cautious as well. I really hope that Jarrett Brown and the other juniors and seniors have a lot of success by staying with the program. And I hope that the incoming group is close to what has been said about them already.

Not sure about the bride thing, but it is what it is, which is better than broad, yes? Mostly, though, it’s vintage Stewart, and he’s kind of gotten away from that this spring. Thing’s haven’t been as uniformly rosy and optimistic. He’s been critical and furious, too. I don’t think it’s just me, but it’s easier to figure out what’s good and what’s not right now. The expectations are more level because there aren’t nearly as many things that excite the head coach. That’s not a criticism of Stewart — and I realize it’s not high praise, either — but I think that does explain the curveball you mentioned. As for Twitter, they’re still finding their groove. Slowly, but surely. No, ten Tweets about practice that basically say the same things everyone else will say aren’t riveting. The soundtrack for his commute is a little better. It’s a new avenue and WVU has to figure out what it wants to deliver to a rather specific audience and how. 

glibglub said:

Guess it’s official – the Twitter / pop song thing has legs. It’s Manifold Destiny.

Well done, sir. Well done.

Brian Wilson said:

Does Bill Stewart know that I neither set my alarm nor got out of bed for several years?

Seeing as if he remains a fan, I have to wonder.

Birch said:

Next up: Stew gets his own radio show on XM. “Oll Stew’s Oll Timey Hayride.” Sadly it fails due to Stew’s inability to properly work his headphones.

Enjoy the weekend!