Let us not get carried away with one victory!

Dwayne Watts, aka The Sports Dude will now regularly be blogging for us. After the jump, he gives his take on the Backyard Brawl, and especially Head Coach Bill Stewart…

Flashback: January 2, 2008. The underdog WVU Mountaineers had just overcome insurmountable odds to upset the then third ranked, and heavily favored, Oklahoma Sooners.  Less than a month earlier, the heavily favored and second ranked WVU Mountaineers had lost to Pittsburgh, a 4-touchdown underdog, before a sellout crowd at Mountaineer Field. In the early hours following the historical Mountaineer victory in the desert in Arizona, a little known, long-time assistant coach, Bill Stewart was hired as the new WVU head coach. Stewart was a dark horse candidate at best before the Oklahoma victory. Stewart was not even on the “short list” of potential candidates. Yet because of one improbable victory, Stewart was named the head coach without a single formal interview. One win was enough to convince then A.D. Ed Pastilong to hire Stewart. One victory. Forget the long list of doubts surrounding the “candidate”. One victory was enough. “He deserves the head-coaching job,” Pat White said after the Fiesta Bowl win. “All the players respect him, all the players love him. You couldn’t ask for a better guy to lead us today.” The last part of that statement is the most telling portion of the entire quote by Pat White.

Flash Forward: November 26, 2010. WVU handily defeated its bitter rival, Pitt.  To call today’s game anything but an “ass whooping” would be an understatement. Pitt contributed to their demise by costly turnovers, but WVU dominated the game where it counted, the final score. A West Virginia sportswriter asked after the game, “Did this victory save Bill Stewart’s job?” I would have to answer with a resounding NO! A victory over a rival is always important. It energizes the alumni base and it helps recruiting efforts. I stated earlier in the week the most important stat in the Bill Stewart Era as WVU Head Coach is Zero – zero Big East titles, zero Top 10 finishes and zero BCS Bowls played or won. A great victory over a 6-4, unranked Pitt team is not a “signature win”. Bill Stewart’s body of work at WVU indicates he should not be retained as the Head Coach. His teams, given the talent level, have underachieved. One victory does not make a career and should not be a deciding factor in head coaching personnel decisions.  Bill Stewart was the guy to lead the WVU Mountaineers today (as Pat White said of him in January 2008), but let us not repeat the personnel mistakes made in the early morning hours of the Arizona desert following another great WVU victory. If Bill Stewart does not win the Big East and win a BCS Bowl game, he should not be retained as the WVU Head Football Coach.

Dwayne Watts, aka The Sports Dude, can be followed on Twitter @ImTheSportsDude at https://twitter.com/#!/ImTheSportsDude .  His sports blog posts are also available at http://thesportsdude.tumblr.com/.