MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — One setback after another hasn’t fazed West Virginia coach Bill Stewart.
Three weeks from national high school signing day, there’s no time for worrying, even if he’s short a few recruiters.
He lost recruiting coordinator and assistant coach Doc Holliday to Marshall in December and graduate assistant JaJuan Seider followed Holliday a few weeks later. That left the Mountaineers short during the height of recruiting season, particularly in Florida, Holliday’s area of expertise and Seider’s stomping ground.
On New Year’s Day, the Mountaineers fell flat in the second half of the Gator Bowl in Bobby Bowden’s final game as coach of Florida State.
Now Stewart faces the possibility of losing running back Noel Devine to the NFL draft. Devine has said he is mulling the decision and has until Friday to make up his mind.
Stewart, who recently returned from a weeklong recruiting trip that took him to Georgia, Texas and Ohio, said he’s focused more on winter conditioning and spring ball than any void in the program.
He recalls fans telling him the Mountaineers wouldn’t recover after losing quarterback Pat White and running backs Steve Slaton and Owen Schmitt to the NFL.
“I’m not going to get too bent out of shape,” Stewart said.
Under Devine and quarterback Jarrett Brown, the Mountaineers finished 9-4 and a No. 25 ranking was their second straight Top 25 finish. But that compares with two Bowl Championship Series wins in the three seasons before that.
Cincinnati has two straight Big East titles and that doesn’t sit well with the Mountaineers.
“We’re used to winning here,” Stewart said, rattling off the names of White, Slaton and Schmitt. “The guys behind them weren’t quite as good.”
Stewart said Devine and Jock Sanders, the team’s top wide receiver who also is mulling leaving school for the draft, attended a team meeting earlier this week, although the coach said that doesn’t mean they’ll be back.
If Devine doesn’t return, it would mark the first time in five years that the Mountaineers would enter a season without a marquee name in the starting backfield. Of course, White and Slaton became stars midway through the 2005 season.
While Brown and three other seniors on offense won’t be back, Stewart prefers talking about the crop of players who will, like fullback Ryan Clarke, running back Tavon Austin and wide receiver Brad Starks.
“I’m not worried at all,” Stewart said. “I’m anxiously awaiting this spring and this winter to watch them lift. I think these guys are on a mission. They didn’t like to lose. We’re going to have to pick it up by the old bootstraps.”
Brown, who went 11-4 as a starter, became the first West Virginia quarterback in 11 seasons to throw for more than 2,000 yards in a season. He had 2,144 yards with 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions. But he left the Marshall game with a concussion and threw for 200 yards just once over the final seven games.
His heir apparent is Geno Smith, who completed 65 percent of his passes for 309 yards, a touchdown and a pick in five games as a freshman. Smith went 8 of 15 for 92 yards against Florida State after Brown left the game with an ankle injury.
“The level of competition is something I definitely got acclimated to,” Smith said. “I understand you’ve got to come out and play every week. I’ve got to come out next year and execute and I think we’ll do really well.”
More times than not, the offense was bailed out by Devine. He had a career-high 220 yards in a double-digit win over Colorado and his 56-yard TD run with 2:10 left gave the Mountaineers a 28-24 win over Connecticut.
If Sanders returns, the offense will need to find more ways to get him involved. Midway through the season, Sanders was among the nation’s leaders with more than eight catches per game, but his production dropped. If he leaves, Starks, at 29 catches for 405 yards, would be the team’s top returning receiver.
The Mountaineers were merely spectators in the Gator Bowl. After jumping ahead 14-3, West Virginia managed little else, fortifying a season-long problem of finishing games. The Mountaineers did most of their scoring in the first half.
The starters on the offensive line played nearly all of the snaps and Stewart must rethink whether his staff should use a wealth of line depth to keep the offense fresh on long drives.
Among the losses on defense are linebacker Reed Williams and safety Nate Sowers. The 2010 unit will be anchored by safety Robert Sands, who had a team-high nine tackles against Florida State, and a Big East-leading five interceptions. Sands was stripped of his starting position for the first four games this season.
Despite the departures of Holliday and Seider, Stewart said recruiting is going well.
Latwan Anderson, a highly recruited defensive player from Cleveland, announced last week on a nationally televised all-star game that he planned to attend WVU.
“Last year we had the first top 25 recruiting class in the 100-yard history of West Virginia University football,” Stewart said. “This year, the recruiting’s going even better this year.
“The players we have in the program and the coaches that are here recruiting, things are going pretty good and in the right direction.”
