Published: March 03, 2008 10:22 pm      

Stewart says he sees sky as limit for WVU football team

CHARLESTON — Is God part of the Mountaineer faithful?

You can’t back that up with Holy Writ, but at least the West Virginia football team had plenty of fans Monday in the Legislature, and one lawmaker ventured so far as to suggest the Lord favors the blue and gold.

New coach Bill Stewart stopped shy of predicting a national title, but in an impromptu interview, said hard work and solid health translates into “the sky’s the limit” for the 2008 campaign.

Stewart was thrown into the vortex after the stunning loss to Pitt and the immediate departure of ex-coach Rich Rodriguez, but showed his mettle by leading the Mountaineers to a 48-28 thrashing of Oklahoma last Jan. 2.

Bathed in the light of camera strobe lights, Stewart stood on the red carpet of the Senate with some of his players in gray jumpsuits to receive the chamber’s accolades and pose for the traditional photographs.

So what does Stewart do for an encore next fall?

“We’ve got to come back and have an even better season,” he replied. “How does that sound?”

Until the Pitt upset, the Mountaineers were a mere step away from slugging it out for the national college football crown, but instead wound up in the Fiesta Bowl against the Sooners.

“I don’t know about that,” Stewart said, when asked if he can deliver a national title.

“But I hope we’re in contention for it. I mean that sincerely. We’ve got a chance to be pretty doggone good. We’ve got to stay injury-free, of course. That’s the main thing. If we do that and these guys keep working hard, the sky’s the limit.”

Admittedly, the loss of running back Steve Slaton to the National Football League leaves a major hole on the roster.

“You can’t replace him,” Stewart said. “You just try to reload a little bit.”

In floor remarks before adoption of Senate Resolution 30 honoring the team, Judiciary Chairman Jeffrey Kessler, D-Marshall, took a couple of veiled shots at Rodriguez in detailing the adversity the Mountaineers had to overcome.

“We lost a game we thought we’d never lose,” Kessler said.

“We lost a coach we thought would never leave. We won a game they said we could never win.”

But when the talk ended and play began at the Fiesta Bowl, he said, “We showed them the finest team in America were the gold and blue, not maize gold and blue, but our gold and blue. Our gold and blue.”

Kessler suggested the love of the Mountaineer field team isn’t limited to planet earth, either.

“We all know that God is a Mountaineer,” Kessler said. “We all know that God made the sun gold and the sky blue.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com