Bill Clinton watched West Virginia’s semifinal game against Notre Dame and, quite surprisingly, his presence that Friday resonated secondarily among politicians named Bill.

Slick Willie Stewart grabbed the headlines when earlier in the day it was discovered he’d popped up in Parkersburg and spoken lowly of the future of the Big East.

“That’s the disheartening thing, because when you break up a Big East contingent like we had …We had a lot of fun, a lot of rivals. I hate to see it end.”

You can imagine the buzz in MSG that day with the gathered media, Big East officials and ADs and administrators from the remaining teams in attendance. That WVU and Notre Dame happened to be prominently involved in the semifinals and the topic of conference realignment was just serendipity.

I can’t speak for Bill Stewart so if you ask me, “What was he thinking?” I can’t give you an answer. I can’t even say if he was thinking. A lot of the people I spoke to over the weekend had similar reactions.

What I believe happened is probably what did happen. He was on the road doing some promotional stuff, agreed to to a sideline speaking thing and in that interview he answered a question.

The horror!

Maybe there was a little too much detail and a little too much pessimism. If given the chance to do it again, I think — think — he would choose different words. But I don’t know. He could feel very strongly about this and keep his convictions.

That said, it wasn’t a very good move and any act that’s followed by some sort of contrition is usually an act that shouldn’t have occurred in the first place.

Then again, I’m not sure it’s terrible surprising Stewart said this. That’s Billy being Billy. You get what you get.

I’m not even sure it’s so patently absurd that it needs to be dismissed and buried with an apology. Would you be so shocked in two or three years to see WVU in another conference?

Perhaps it was premature or silly or both to say he can see WVU in the SEC. Surely he should have hedged a little with regard to what happens next. I think both go without saying. What good does it do, for example, for me to “Tsk-Tsk” the guy when it’s pretty clear this was a tactical error?

But the guy answered a question a lot of people had been discussing. That, in essence, is why he was in that Parkersburg TV station. That he’s the coach of the Big East’s best football school is what’s unfortunate.

“It is unwarranted for our fans or others to consider my comments an indication of anything more than a coach thinking out loud,” he said.

He took a moment to make sure he spread the message on Twitter, which leads to another point. Coaches are faces of institutions and they’re asked to stretch and bend themselves to do so many things to justify seven-figure salaries, free cars and country club memberships. They tweet, they raise funds, they pop up on Parkersburg television stations and they have to be good at it all.

Too often today we ask coaches, players, heck, any public figures to have a personality and to exist beyond cliches and stereotypes. Now someone does and we’re supposed to crush him for it? Seems disingenuous at worst and ungrateful at best.