Worthiness, and that just as amorphous measuring of accomplishment, are going to be hot points this next month and a half. Heck, Cincinnati’s BCS worthiness has already been debated ad nauseam.
Still, while the quality of play and caliber of teams in the Big East gets questioned, it’s nice to see no one arguing against the brand of coaching in the league.
Three of the Big East’s eight coaches are on the 20-coach long Bryant Award watchlist, Cincinnati’s Brian Kelly, West Virginia’s Bill Stewart and Pitt’s Dave Wannstedt. And that doesn’t even include UConn’s Randy Edsall who may just be coach of the year for marshalling his team through the awful tragedy of Jasper Howard’s murder.
In any case, that’s a better percentage than any conference and that’s more than any conference save for the SEC, which also has three of its coaches on the list. (If you’re wondering, that’s three of 12.)
Coach Stewart, who I’d say reveled in his “country boy” shtick if I thought him capable of a shtick, had the best response: “They have the wrong Stewart. He must be another one, coaching out West somewhere.”
Honestly, I don’t understand why West Virginia’s fan base isn’t more crazy about this guy.
Coach Stewart led West Virginia to a Fiesta Bowl upset of then no. 3 Oklahoma when Rich Rodriguez left in the winter of 2007, he had a very respectable 9-4 Meineke Bowl-winning season last year (I bet RichRod would’ve taken that up in Ann Arbor) and he’s done it all while having to listen to big-time boosters (ahem, Ken Kendrick) and lower-profile fans call him overmatched. He’s 6-1 this year and on a teleconference last night, Noel Devine said Coach Stewart deserves the credit for “keeping the team together.”
Devine then offered a little bit about how his coach’s “major is American history” and how therefore every day brings a new story from the man he called a master motivator. “He’s good on his history,” Devine said. “It’s a different thing every day. You never know what you’re going to get with him.”
Except of course a warm, down-to-earth, eminently quotable and unfailingly humble man.
“That is a real tribute to our staff,” Stewart later, more seriously, said about his inclusion on the Bryant watchlist. “I think we have the best sideline adjustment people in the game… Our staff has never quit believing, but most importantly, our players rally around each other, and they believe in our coaches. That is the bottom line. That watch list is nothing but a testament to the best staff that I have ever been around and to the greatest group of young men.”
Here’s the rest of the watchlist and the men he’ll be competing with:
Robb Akey, Idaho
Mack Brown, Texas
Pete Carroll, USC
Kirk Ferentz, Iowa
Al Golden, Temple
Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State
Paul Johnson, Georgia Tech
Brian Kelly, Cincinnati
Chip Kelly, Oregon
Bronco Mendenhall, BYU
Urban Meyer. Florida
Les Miles, LSU
Joe Paterno, Penn State
Gary Patterson, TCU
Chris Petersen, Boise State
Nick Saban, Alabama
Randy Shannon, Miami
Bill Stewart, West Virginia
Kevin Sumlin, Houston
Dave Wannstedt, Pittsburgh
Aditi Kinkhabwala has written a regular column for SI.com and been published in Sports Illustrated.