OPINION

By Matt Hayes

updated 3:04 a.m. ET Jan. 5, 2008

Matt Hayes

Look, I don't want to throw a sopping blanket on the feel-good story of the college football postseason. But what in the world is West Virginia doing?

Lose a program-defining coach, gain Gomer Pyle.

Bill Stewart is a nice man and by all accounts a coach who will give his all to West Virginia. But instead of hiring the best man available, the administration hired the best fan available.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

What a month it has been in Morgantown.

• Lose one of the biggest games in school history — to your bitter rival, a double-digit underdog, no less — with a spot in the national title game a whiff away.
• Lose the best coach in school history because, well, petty principle has to stand for something.
• Search for another coach while the dirty underbelly of political infighting is aired for all to see.
• Then, of course, win a BCS bowl game and hire the caretaker who just happened to be in the right place when a group of motivated, talented players took out their frustrations on the poor saps from Oklahoma.

No team would have beaten West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl. Not Ohio State, LSU, USC or Georgia.

That's not to say the Mountaineers were the nation's best team; it's more of a reflection of what emotion and motivation mean in college sports. Once Rich Rodriguez left West Virginia for Michigan, once he turned his back on everything he built in Morgantown and everything it means to anyone who has sang "Country Roads" at the end of a home game, the Mountaineers weren't losing.

And because it took so long to find another coach, because two factions within the search committee — the big-money boosters and the old guard at the school led by former coach Don Nehlen — could never come to a consensus, the interim coach became the permanent coach when the inevitable happened.

The high rollers wanted former Auburn coach Terry Bowden, and the old guard wanted Florida assistant Doc Holliday. And there was Stewart, smiling and preaching love for West By God Virginia.

So the Mountaineers win the Fiesta Bowl, the search committee gets caught up in the euphoria and a drawn-out process that had begun to embarrass the university and state gets boiled down to a little more than three hours in the Arizona desert. All for a guy who was told he wasn't a serious candidate when this whole mess began.

Who knows what kind of head coach Stewart will be. Can he recruit, and will he be able to find a coordinator who can run Rodriguez's ultra-successful spread option? That was Calvin Magee calling plays last week for West Virginia — the same Magee who is now offensive coordinator at Michigan.

What happens when Stewart is forced to tell Steve Slaton that he has gone from Heisman Trophy candidate to backup running back? Or when the elation of the Fiesta Bowl wears thin and the players don't fear the coach they loved and hugged in a moment of need?

"I will never leave West Virginia," Stewart says. "This is my last job." The question is, how long will he hold it? It's easy to sit in the big chair when an entire team is focused on something much bigger than what any win could bring.

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Just ask Larry Coker.

When Butch Davis left Miami after the 2000 season, after pledging his loyalty to his players and the school, nice-guy Coker was given the keys to the Ferrari after a public search with equally public rejections from some of the game's best coaches. The instructions to Coker were simple: Turn the key and don't let off the gas. It worked for a couple of seasons, but then Coker had to recruit, had to develop a quarterback, had to find an identity. Next thing you know, Gomer Pyle couldn't get out of his own way and the most memorable thing from his final season was a brawl with a nothing team in a nothing game.

Now the Canes lose by 48 at home.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

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