By BRIAN WOODSON
BLUEFIELD — West Virginia has been installed as a 3 1/2 point favorite for its Gator Bowl matchup with Florida State.
Bill Stewart begs to differ.
“Oh my, we’re underdogs, yes, you’re talking about one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game going out,”... said Stewart, West Virginia’s second year head coach. “I can only imagine what the Florida State coaches and players are going to do, and I can only imagine what coach Bowden himself is going to do for this last hurrah.”
It’s Stewart and West Virginia (9-3) playing Florida State (6-6) and 80-year-old Seminoles’ head coach Bobby Bowden, who will oversee his final game of a career that has included 388 wins, 42 of which were attained as the coach of the Mountaineers from 1970-75.
Stewart, who played for Bowden at West Virginia, is honored to be the final coach to go against the legendary Bowden on the gridiron.
“I could tell you this. In 1970, when I came over here from New Martinsville, W.Va., I never have dreamed this day would have come about,” Stewart said. “I was a little walk-on linebacker, and he let me come out and try out for the team, and he was the head football coach, in his first year, and I never dreamed this day would come.
“But I’m very honored to be across the field from him in his last game. Let me assure you, you have no idea, I just hope I can keep my emotions in check that day. It’s going to be very difficult.”
West Virginia overcame late-season road losses to South Florida and Cincinnati to finish in second place in the Big East, and secured a Gator Bowl bid, the ‘Eers’ seventh trip to the Jacksonville, Fla., game, having posted a 1-5 mark, including losses to Florida State in 1982 (31-12) and ‘05 (30-18).
The Mountaineers did win their last meeting in the Gator Bowl, as Pat White willed West Virginia to a 38-35 thriller over Georgia Tech in ‘07.
Even though the Mountaineers enter with the better record and a top 20 ranking, the Seminoles are just 6-6, and only got a Gator Bowl bid after Bowden announced his retirement and expressed an interest to finish his career in a Florida bowl game.
He got that wish, and also wanted to play West Virginia because of his ties there.
Stewart said the Seminoles might be 6-6, but they always have plenty of talent, and definite motivation to send Bowden out as a winner. They’ll have to do it without starting quarterback Christian Ponder, who is out with an injury.
“I’m going to tell you right now, and all West Virginians everywhere, if the West Virginia University football team of 2009 thinks they are going up against a 6-6 bunch of five hundred pansies, we are going to get whipped, we are going to get whipped decisively, and we should get whipped,” Stewart said. “We are going to get our hats handed to us. I don’t have to browbeat my football team, our football team, your football team, by saying, ‘don’t overlook them.’
“Our guys are smart enough. The football team we’re about to play, although they’re 6-6, lost their quarterback. You saw what happened when our football team’s quarterback got dinged. We weren’t on the same cylinders. Not hitting on all cylinders – on the same page.”
West Virginia has motivation too, securing a fifth straight bowl win, and 10-win season, something the Mountaineers had done three years in a row until their 9-4 mark in ‘08 that ended with a 31-30 Meineke Car Bowl win over North Carolina.
“I’m very pleased to stand before you as a 9-3 football team, and I mean that sincerely,” Stewart said. “Are we overjoyed? Is it the greatest thing that ever happened? No, we want to be 12-0, hopefully someday, working on our 13th win, but we’re 9-3...We’re excited to be 9-3, and now we have a chance to win a 10th football game.”
There’s little doubt the Gator Bowl will get plenty of national attention when the clubs meet on Jan. 1 in a 1 p.m. kickoff that will be televised by CBS. Tickets for the game were gone in two hours.
“I was down in Jacksonville at the Gator Bowl press conference. You can not believe the buzz. You have to be there to see the buzz,” Stewart said. “We’re going to walk out in that stadium, I’ve told the guys this, there’s going to be 70,000 crimson, gold and white Florida State fans, I’m sure, against about 15,000 of us.
“I like those odds, I’ll take those odds, because 15,000 West Virginians in that stadium’s all we need. If we get more, that’s great. They’re going to — our men know they’re going to be outnumbered, our men know they’re going to be up against it, and if they don’t they’re going to know real quick as soon as we come through that tunnel.”
—Contact Brian Woodson
at bwoodson@bdtonline.com
