I think Oll Stewart really likes Brian Bennett … and now I know he likes history.  

We have a quote in our weight room from General Patton, who was a VMI rat before he went to West Point, did you know that? And it says “May God have mercy on my enemies, because I won’t.”

That’s the way William Tecumseh Sherman was when he took Atlanta. There are times when you’ve got to kick butt. There are also times you learn to retreat to fight another day. There’s also times when you have to be an Omar Bradley, you have to be a compassionate man that sits back and sees the big picture. There are times when you have to be Ike Eisenhower that says “Dammit, this is the plan, I’m sticking with it and I’m going to stick to my gut.” So you have to have all those qualities as a football coach.

Part Patton, part Sherman, part Bradley, part Ike and yet the guy’s coming into his own. I don’t know, it just seems to me he understands it’s all his now and he’s not there for whatever reason people want to use against him. I kind of admire he’s unchanged on what transpired last season — and this is his quote:  “We probably weren’t as good as some people thought.” That’s a fairly honest assessment.

That’s the biggest problem I had last year. Every West Virginia fan wanted to play the game on paper and say, “We had this guy back, this guy back, this guy back.” But I had no O-lineman get invited to (an all-star) bowl game, and I had no linemen drafted off what was supposed to be one of the best lines in America. We lost Owen Schmitt, Stevie Slaton and Darius Reynaud. We had seven new starters on defense who were freshmen or sophomores. I’m very, very proud of what we did. And anyone who doesn’t see that, I don’t even want to talk to them.