Bill Stewart gets a lot of grief for the sometimes meandering manner of his press conferences. Sometimes we get confused trying to follow along and sort sense from nonsense. Quite often, there’s a good point lost in translation. 

Fortunately, there’s value in Decoding Bill Stewart. This week, WVU’s head coach is asked about life as a first-year head coach in a conference that has three such individuals this season. What would Bill Stewart tell one of those three about navigating the peaks and valleys? Stewart refreshes his fondness for military strategy and then reveals a very intimate detail of his first year as WVU’s head coach.

From Tuesday’s press conference

Question: “Bill, for a separate story I’m working on¹, Skip lost to Syracuse last week. He just took over this job and there’s ups and downs when you transition into a new job. And there’s Charlie Strong and there’s Butch at Cincinnati, there’s new coaches in the league².

“What do you tell coaches — because you’ve been through it transitioning into a new job in this league — what would you tell them about the ups and downs? You have to go through them, right? I mean, it’s invariable.”

Answer: “I like that, invariable³. Colin, every coach, particularly a winner like Skip Holtz, every coach has a plan. That’s what I did. I had a plan. Maybe a lot of people don’t disagree with the plan — or they disagree — but you have to have a plan.

“Sooner or later Patrick White was going to graduate⁴. Owen Schmitt graduated and Darius Reynaud and Stevie Slaton went to the NFL. I had to really have a good plan⁵. OK? And eight defensive starters were gone when I took over.  So I had to have me a plan⁶. Once you get a plan, you install it and then you follow it to a tee the best you can⁷.

“He’s won at UConn⁸. He’s won at East Carolina⁹. He’s going to win at South Florida. He’s been a coordinator at various other big, major universities — Notre Dame, South Carolina, places¹⁰. So you follow, or implement, the plan.

“And the last time, the last thing I’d say to someone, what I did, because I know I was 1-2 here at one time when I first started this gig out¹¹ and only two people would be seen eating with me in public¹² — and that was my radio show. One was Mr. Mike Puskar. The other one was the athletic director, Coach Eddie Pastilong. I couldn’t get anyone else to be seen with me in public but those two men¹³. I’ve never forgotten that.

“So you have faith in your plan. You have faith in your plan. Got it? You get your plan, then you have to follow your plan and then bumpy roads, like the Syracuse game or what have you¹⁴, you have faith that things will get better on a different day¹⁵.”

And breathe. Let’s tiptoe through the footnotes.

1. “You know, the one about football that’s separate from all the others about football.” Wily newspaper guy trick that gets everyone’s attention and encourages a quality response from the subject. “Oh, this is for a separate story? I better nail this.”

2. That’d be Charlie Strong at Louisville and Butch Jones at Cincinnati, in addition to Skip Holtz at ECU. Add Doug Marrone, whose doing a tremendous job at Syracuse, and half of the membership has very new coaches. Not only that, but they’re pretty good.

Louisville is 3-2, but has lost to respectable opponents in Kentucky and Oregon State and just battered Memphis. The Cardinals offense is quietly very strong. Jones had a rough start with losses to Fresno State, N.C. State and Oklahoma, but the effort and improvement were there against Oklahoma and, even at 2-3, you can trust things will turn quickly there.

As for USF, well, the Bulls got done by the Orange Saturday, 13-9, and Holtz, now 3-2, took his first dose of medicine after a loss – his first was to Florida, which can be tolerated in that state.

3. Invariable: adj. Not changing or subject to change; constant.

4. Students can play four seasons in five consecutive years. It’s invariable … unless a hardship waiver is granted to allow a sixth year, or if the student-athlete participates in a mission. Neither applied to Patrick.

5. In 2007, Slaton accounted for 1,262 yards (1,051 rushing, 211 receiving) and 18 touchdowns. Schmitt added 346 yards (272 rushing, 74 receiving) and five TDs. Darius Reynaud had 836 yards (733 receiving, 103 rushing) and 13 touchdowns. WVU totaled 5,931 total yards (3,864 yards rushing, 2,067 yards passing/receiving) and 65 TDs. Those three names accounted for 2,417 yards and 36 TDs – or 40.8 percent of the yards and 55.4 percent of the TDs. Schmitt was a senior, Slaton and Reynaud juniors who opted for the NFL.

And none of that counts White, was a junior who that season ran for another 1,335 yards and 14 TDs and had 1,724 of the team’s 2,067 yards and 14 of the 16 TDs passing. So, yeah, Stewart needed to figure a few things out. Fast.

6. I count seven, but it’s still a big number. Senior starters that season: DT Keilen Dykes, LB Marc Magro, CB Antonio Lewis, CB Larry Williams, S Ryan Mundy, S Eric Wicks. Defensive end Johnny Dingle was a junior who decided to go pro and tell lots of people. Also gone: CB Vaughn Rivers, LB Bobby Hathaway, S Ridwan Malik. All started on occasion in their careers. Rivers played a ton in 2007 and Malik, to be fair, did start five of 13 games that season.

7. Basic military strategy and if I had to guess what encouraged Stewart to go in this direction, I’d say with certainty it’s Sun Tzu’s “Art of War.” In short, Tzu believed “strategy was not planning in the sense of working through an established list, but rather that it requires quick and appropriate responses to changing conditions. Planning works in a controlled environment, but in a changing environment, competing plans collide, creating unexpected situations.” Sounds a lot like Sun Stew, yes?

8. Yes, Holtz was the UConn coach for five years and preceded Randy Edsall. From 1994-1998, Holtz was 34-23 and used a 10-3 season in 1998 as a catapult to his next gig …

9. … not East Carolina. Still, where he was there the past five years and was 38-27, but increased his win total his first three years and was 9-5 in the past two seasons. Do the math in those seasons: 14 games. He won the Conference USA title both times.

10. How about this: Holtz was a graduate assistant from 1987-88 at Florida State for Bobby Bowden and then an assistant the next year at Colorado State for Earl Bruce. After that, he was an assistant (1990-91) and then the offensive coordinator (1992-93) for Notre Dame. He left South Bend for UConn and then ended up as the offensive coordinator (1999-2003) and then quarterbacks coach (2004) at South Carolina. At Notre Dame and South Carolina, he coached for his father, Lou.

11. Stewart won his opener against good friend Andy Talley and Villanova, but then lost at ECU and Colorado. Those were thin times around campus. WVU hadn’t had a losing streak since 2004, hadn’t been under .500 since October the season before and hadn’t been 1-2 since 1999, which was right around the time Don Nehlen started to rapidly lose popularity and bashing coaches gained popularity.

12. His wife, Karen, and son, Blaine, right?

13. Not even the Top Cat?! But seriously, I’ve missed only a handful of Bill Stewart teleconferences and press conferences and football games the past two-plus seasons, and all because of basketball conflicts. I’ve stood around him in candid moments and been behind closed doors with him and enjoyed many conversations when it was he and I or just a few others. This has never, ever come up. I found that insightful and endearing.

14. … or 1-2 starts and lonely meals with the people who you know care and you can trust.

15. If Bill Stewart has a quiet moment with Skip Holtz Saturday, or Charlie Strong or Butch Jones later in the season, and the topic of conversation were to shift to how to handle the twilight of a honeymoon on a new job, Bill Stewart would say this: Believe in the plan you so wisely crafted and implemented at the outset and follow it. There will be rough patches, but stay true to your vision and your faith will be rewarded.