Lots to discuss so let’s handle as much as we can at 11 am tomorrow. Hopefully this is how you get to spend your last hour at work before the break. We’ll talk again at some point Tuesday, as well.
For now, make plans to talk about WVU’s new coach offensive coordinator, Dana Holgorsen. Be there live or drop your comments in the queue now or here in the comments.
So yesterday wasn’t all too unusual. The players were tight-lipped and said they’d been instructed to not talk about the coaching change. Whatever little they did share was tame and void of hurt or anger. The coaches, and specifically Jeff Mullen and Dave Johnson, were exactly what you expected. Neither had a bad thing to say and Mullen even had some funny things to say.
When asked what was next for him, he revealed he rather likes the show “House Hunters” — not the international edition, thanks to a follow-up from Mr. Dunlap — and that, if we could pull some strings, he’d like to get on the show.
Life goes on. Both Mullen and Johnson insisted as much and really wanted to talk about the game and the kids rather than their situations.
Bill Stewart was just about as transparent and didn’t mind talking a little about the future and how excited he was for what’s about to happen to him and to WVU.
“It is what it is,” he said. “We’ll prepare for the bowl as best as we can and after that we’ll prepare for the future, which I see as very exciting.
“I’m very excited, and I mean that from my heart, for the 2011 season. But before I talk about 2011, I need to focus on 2010 and how we finish. That’s all I told the team. How we finish is how we’re going to be remembered.”
He was OK with a laugh, too, and when Bob Hertzel asked about opening up the offense in the bowl game because “What’s the worst that can happen? You lose your job?” the tension exited the room.
Now, who knows what happens today. Stewart, Oliver Luck and Dana Holgorsen will have a press conference in the afternoon and I’m sure all three will try to project a normal situation even though, right now, this is not. Not yet at least. I don’t know Mr. Holgorsen at all. I hear he’s a character, so maybe he fits right in at WVU. I’m most curious about what plans he has for the staff and if we can get some substantiation as opposed to just running with rumors and suggestions gathered from message boards.
The other news of the previous day: Brandon Hogan is out for sure with his torn ACL. One offensive lineman and one defensive lineman are academically ineligible and won’t travel for the bowl. One will hurt more than the other, though both matter.
The most profound ear-bender Oliver Luck let loose last week was the fact season ticket sales and attendance mattered in his decision to make a change at the top of the football program. People, he believes, vote with their feet.
This is where we can engage in a discussion about how the numbers right now are about where they were before the product peaked under The Product, about how a coach’s performance is judged by a fan’s bank account, so on and so forth. I don’t think anyone or anything, rooted in reality, is wrong or irrelevant in this instance.
This is also where we can say ticket sales for the Champs Sports Bowl have been similarly disappointing. WVU has sold around 4,500 tickets and can account for about 7,000 of the 12,500 it must sell or eat. Yikes … with an asterisk.
Wells said the lack of support for the 22nd-ranked Mountaineers (9-3) seems to be mostly due to the game’s midweek date and its proximity to Christmas – or at least that’s why WVU athletic officials are hearing from the buying public.
“We thought we’d do better than this, obviously,” Wells said, pointing out the different destination for WVU’s postseason and the other attractions in the Orlando area. “It’s kind of surprising to us.”
And yet, the university can understand and probably anticipated this a while back.
Not long ago, this Tuesday in December looked as if it would be more procedural than anything else. Try as WVU might to convey otherwise, this is going to be pretty interesting. I’ve been thinking about it for a few days now, of course, and this promises to be one of the more unusual days I’ve been around on this job. I guess I’m ready for anything, but prepared for nothing. Make sense?
Certainly, nothing is going to be the way it was in Deember 2007, but every case is unique and this one sure distinguishes itself on many levels. Fortunately, WVU returned to practice Saturday — I’m told that was “odd” at first and then just football after — and some of whatever awkwardness existed has probably been managed. But now here comes the media for its last pre-bowl invitation oncampus. We get to talk to players and assistants and Bill Stewart has his first official lame duck press conference.
I don’t think we’ll get very much out of this — and that’s not a complaint, just a tip of the hat to reality. I’m told Brandon Hogan has been ruled out of the bowl and today is the day we learn about academic casualties, but everyone is talking and thinking about something else. I suggest you expect something else.
The players will be themselves, the assistants from whom you might hope for soundbytes are among the classiest people I’ve worked with and, just a guess, but Stewart will probably have some sort of an opening statement and include within it a request to keep our questions focused on the bowl.
That said, suppose there is no restriction and suppose Mickey is not in attendance. You have the first question. Singular. The floor is yours …
There’s a press conference with Oliver Luck this afternoon, and I have to give the guy credit for coming out and doing this. For a moment, I was curious, if not concerned, it might be just a press release. So there’s that to do to day and then I go on vacation. Awesome timing, as always.
It was in the early hours this morning that what’s happened the past seven days finally hit me squarely. This is a big, big deal — not terribly unlike the exit of Beilein and the arrival of Huggins, sharing a lot of similarities with P-Rod’s departure and Stewart’s entry — with a whole lot of peole involved and affected and not everyone is as guilty or as innocent as it seems.
It’s been in motion for quite some time despite denials or “no comments” from people intimately involved … and that’s fine. Not bitter about that at all, please understand, but their work did make some people on the other end of the phone or notepad look and feel silly when that was not the case. Wednesday night, this case was closed.
So as I gingerly step away from the laptop knowing full well Casey Mitchell will score 141 points Saturday night and Dana Holgorsen will announce the transfer of Andrew Luck to WVU, I have three questions/discussion topics for all of you:
1) You get one question for Mr. Luck. What do you ask?
2) How do you feel about the entirety of this?
3) What happens next at WVU (and I realize that’s an impossibly broad question, but that’s my intent)?
Off the many things you’ll read this evening, do make this one.
This might be interesting, too. The Holgorsen thing is official.
Probably a good idea to start another post, yes? Obviously, this has controlled the conversation and the idle thinking the past day-plus. I’ve had to press the pause button because as I try to write stories to give to my boss before I go on vacation, I suddenly realize it might be wasted time to talk about the offensive coordinator or the head coach. Can you even quote them for a story that runs Monday?
I have no clue when we’ll hear anything, but I hope and believe it has to be sooner rather than later. I understand people need time to sort out their personal matters, but you can’t have Stewart out there spinning around and subjecting himself to awkward moments like this. That’s surreal. WVU is to practice again Tuesday evening and shame on everyone if nothing happens before then. Some say it’s too late to spare any shame.
There’s no adequate way to summarize, but we can try. This is what we know: There was to be a meeting earlier this month between Luck and Holgorsen and it was cancelled. Why? Could have been bad weather. Could also have been that WVU tapped the brakes because it had a 9-3 football team. The two sides still got together and there are solid theories I’ve been told, such as Holgorsen’s candidacy at Pitt inspiring an appointment, but the best is that the interest between the two sides never waned. Holgorsen was not offered the job at Pitt and the Panthers backed away. Again, more theories there, but a day later it was very clear to many people but the ones most involved Holgorsen was coming to WVU.
We could go on and on, so why don’t we? I’m on vacation tomorrow through Monday, which would mean no chat tomorrow. But what about an emergency bat signal chat at 2 p.m. today? I know there are a million questions. I think I have about 891,000 answers. Start your questions now, either here or in the queue, and I’ll do what I can do. Deal?
12:18 pm: Just keep pressing F5 today, folks. Here’s the early version of Mr. Holgorsen going to WVU.
(Update: I’m rowing along in my little canoe here and following this as it happens. Hope you don’t mind me not updating very much today. Or tomorrow. I just don’t want to miss something.
I go on vacation Thursday, unless something happens. And let’s face it: You know my track record and I’m frightened by the things I hear.
Truth it, this is the only thing really “happening” at WVU now and I’ve got to stick with it. I could hit you with a basketball post or a discussion topic, but I very much doubt you’d be interested. I also can’t put out what I know and what I’m preparing to report for fairly obvious reasons.
We can keep it going in the comments. I’ll visit that and try to answer questions and address concerns and all that. Also, the paper v. paper thing is misplaced. No one’s wrong here. Please don’t make this about that.)
All I’m at liberty to say right now is I’ve been working the phones and that news you’re wondering about is sorted out in tomorrow’s paper now.
Deep breaths, everyone. This is a fluid situation and really not at all about the current state of newspapers. We had it early this afternoon. It’s up now. So? Let’s keep the focus where it needs to be, OK?
When no one is on the record with a name, there is a reason. What we can say is there was to be a meeting between two sides and that particular meeting was, for important and still unknown reasons, cancelled.
It would appear, though, there was an interest that was existent and mutual, to the point the two sides could have met or talked after the initial plan was nixed. The interest could still exist, particularly if Pitt is no longer interested in Holgorsen, but things do change and for various reasons. It wouldn’t be unusual for someone to think ahead and then later decide that thinking ahead was unnecessary. It wouldn’t be unusual for someone to think one opportunity is better than another.
Don’t sprain any knee ligaments jumping to conclusions here.
Just to clarify, because I keep getting e-mail about this, Brandon Hogan has a torn ACL.
“Technically, from a medical standpoint, the injury is a third-degree sprain of the anterior cruciate ligament, which would be a complete tear,” head football trainer Dave Kerns said.
So there. And, sure, Hogan might play in the bowl, but it’s a long, long shot. Even if he can go, the greater concern is how effective he’d be against N.C. State’s pass attack.
Speaking of long shots, Jeff Mullen doesn’t seem like the lock people wanted to make him out to be at Kent State. Alabama assistant Curt Cignetti is in the lead … and his boss happens to be a Kent State grad who’s been asked to advise the school on its decision.
