Big East Sports Blog

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Bill Stewart was supposed to fill Rich Rodriguez’ shoes and WVU football was not supposed to suffer from the loss of their coach and his staff, but that appears to be exaclty what has happened as the West Virginia Mountaineers have started the 2008 season 1-2. After a 48-21 drubbing of Villanova, WVU has lost back-to-back games on the road @ East Carolina and @ Colorado and now head into their in-state rivalry game vs. the Marshall Thundering Herd likely unranked. Heck, I don’t even think Vegas will favor WVU by too many points in this one as Marshall looks pretty good in 2008. Maybe Bill Stewart is not the man to lead this ship (with a 6-year contract he better be!), maybe this is karma getting back at the classless fans who have threatened Rich Rodriguez and his family, or maybe the loss of Steve Slaton was more than any of us thought, but it hasn’t hurt the sales of WVU football tickets. Tickets are still going for $110-$340 on one popular ticket site and from $97-$316 on another.

One thing is certain, WVU fans will not stand to watch their program fall apart, and there’s too much talent on this West Virginia football team to not be winning and winning now.

The WVU Mountaineers continue to control their own destiny in the Big East after surviving a scare at home against Louisville last night, 38-31. The game featured 7 turnovers, 4 by Louisville and 3 by WVU, as fumbles plagued both teams. Louisville trailed by 17 in the 3rd Quarter and was able to tie the score at 31-31 before Pat White’s 50-yard run proved to be the winning touchdown.

With the loss, Louisville drops to 5-5 (2-3 Big East) on the season while West Virginia improves to 8-1 (3-1 Big East) with 3 games remaining for WVU. The Mountaineers are @ Cincinnati on Nov. 17th, host #13 and Big East leading UConn on the 24th and host Pittsburgh on December 1st. If they can win out, WVU would earn the Big East’s automatic BCS Bowl game berth.