Take Me Home, Country Roads
By Erie's Scribe on Jan 03, 2008 with Comments 2
A good day for Mountaineer football, and frankly they needed one. Aloha Mr. Hand. I thought I might be here “lamenting a once-promising Brownies season again ending in frustration,” as my oldest friend on the editorial staff here at The Legend suggested the other day, but two things happened. One thing was that I realized that the Browns season wasn’t so bad. They jumped from 4-12 to 10-6! They have a great young core of players, a coach named after one of Shakespeare’s most famous characters, and a GM who happens to be a genius at talent evaluation.
I’m focused on the improvement side of things because to survive as a Browns fan, you have to. You can’t dwell on the fact that the Colts ignored what happened to them the last time the rested their guys going into the playoffs, and thus handed an inferior Titans team the playoffs on a silver platter (not to mention I already took out my aggression for that on a friend of mine who was still bitter about the Browns/Bills Blizzard Bowl…… jilted Bills and Browns fans are not a good mix. Sorry Bill, the eye gouging was probably a little out of line).
And then, this happened. I, like so many others, completely counted out West Virginia in their Fiesta Bowl match-up with the red hot Oklahoma Sooners. But, when I got home at the end of the first quarter last night, there were the Mountaineers up 6-0 (I was expecting the Sooners to be up 17-3). Then, as West Virginia was extending it’s lead to 20-6 in the second quarter I saw their interim (at the time) head coach, Bill Stewart, prowling on the sidelines. Stewart was running up and down the sidelines like a General encouraging his troops. Stoops looked motionless in comparison.
Stewart was constantly gritting his teeth (although his teeth are still quite large, maybe Mr. Stewart has some beaver blood in him?) and encouraging all of his players. I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised since he’s a special teams coach (hmm, wasn’t Bill Cowher a special teams coach before becoming the head man?) and special teams coaches are some of the coolest dudes on the planet.
Watching Coach Stewart made me want to go run through a brick wall, and it had the same effect on the Mountaineers. They were feeding off of his energy and playing like madmen. But still, I thought that Oklahoma was going to come back, especially when they cut the score to 20-15. “Not so fast, my friend,” the Mountaineers could not be denied last night, and I think it had everything to do with the chemistry of the team, and the fierce energy displayed by their new leader.
Since my alma mater’s football team dukes it out in Division I-AA, I’m kind of a free agent in college football. The moment that West Virginia signed Bill Stewart as the permanent head coach, the Mountaineers moved to the coveted #3 spot on my list of favorite college football programs. This man is a leader of men. And, after watching his players in the post game interviews rave about their coach, their teammates and the state of West Virginia, well let’s just say I hope Mr. White and Mr. Schmitt are wearing Brown and Orange on Sundays next fall.
I’m going to go burn my couch.
Filed Under: Uncategorized
After the bitterness leaves (I will let you know when it does) the Browns did have a nice season. The problem is that they didn’t get to feel any fruits of their efforts and already Baltimore is reportedly going to try to poach Rob Chudzinski.
As for your take on West Virginia, I look at this from Ohio State Buckeye colored glasses. Rich Rodriguez leaves and WVU wins a HUGE game in a HUGE way. When Rodriguez was still there WVU shat the bed against Pitt in a game that would have put them in the BCS title game.
Bill Stewart can be a big game coach in WVU as long as Rodriguez continues to be a bad big game coach over in Michigan. Hopefully he can keep Lloyd Carr’s tradition of losing to the Buckeyes going for at least another decade.
I hear you on the Browns, I’m actually suprised how quickly my biterness left. It’s unusual. If someone poaches Chud, that would be terrible. I agree with you that he’s a huge part of the Browns turn around. If the Ravens poach Chud, I’ll be full of anger and rage.
We’ll see how Mr. Rodriguez does in that school up North. Tressel won’t let anybody walk all over the Buckeyes.
As for WVU, I’m still riding the wave of Fiesta Bowl emotion. I hope Bill Stewart proves all the doubters wrong.