We've all seen it, sometimes all too often: a lack of aggression, especially in crucial situations, from the West Virginia gameplan. It reared it's ugly head blatantly in the USF game, when two punts -- rather than fourth down tries -- took the steam out of a West Virginia attack.
When Bill Stewart coaches, he coaches to win, though for us fans, it often looks like it's not to lose. This bothers me, as I'm sure it bothers a lot of other people. Hell, at one point this week, I longed of having Lane Kiffin as our coach, he of the utter buffoonery and lack of class that it would be-smudge our program. But he'd go for it on 4th and 3 from the opponent's 33, and for a fleeting moment, that appealed to me.
And it shouldn't. I mean, it really shouldn't. I hate Lane Kiffin. I mean, he's a complete jackass. But when our coach defends punting from the opponent's 33 yard line as the correct decision, my mind wanders. When I see that play call, how can I not think that our coach is playing not to lose?
And then my mind wandered even further, back to last year, when our coaching staff, at times, made it nearly impossible to approve of their job. It's better this year, certainly, but there are still violent flashbacks to headset and timeout problems. That 4th down call was one of those problems.
5th Year Senior wrote last week that Bill Stewart had started to develop a swagger. That might have been true, but a coach with a swagger has enough faith in his team to roll the dice every now and again. Punting from relatively deep in an opponent's territory, not once but twice, basically surrenders all of that faith.
For my money, Bill Stewart better keep his foot on the accelerator this Saturday. It would go a long way to winning back the faith of the fans.