The Charleston Gazette Wrote:Delayed spring start could be here to stay
By Dave Hickman
Staff writer
April 19, 2010

MORGANTOWN - Cleaning out a crowded notebook and a cluttered mind while doing a double take when glancing at my calendar:

Yes, it is April 20. And no, West Virginia hasn't completed its spring football practice. In fact, we've reached only the halfway point. Most years, the Mountaineers would have wrapped up last Saturday.

If Bill Stewart has his way, this will be the norm, rather than the exception.

"I don't want to go to the end of the month like we are this year. But finishing [this weekend]? That would be perfect,'' Stewart said. "There's no down side to it. In fact, I think we can make this into something special.''

The something special that brought on this spring's late schedule - WVU began drills April 6 and will finish a week from Friday - was pretty much accidental. When the only viable quarterback on the roster, Geno Smith, broke a bone in his foot in January, it was a no-brainer delaying practice until he was at least able to run around a little bit.

That wasn't the only reason for the delay, but it sure made the decision easier.

Now that the Mountaineers have gone through this type of schedule once, Stewart likes it a lot. Part of it is from the standpoint of simple conditioning. The team goes through a 10-week winter program that begins in January, and for the first time it was completed before the players were asked to switch gears and hit the field.

As it happened, this year the delay also enabled the team to avoid Easter and the school's spring break. Instead of having to stop and start, the Mountaineers are getting in four straight weeks of work.

Perhaps the only down side is that the whole thing runs right into finals week, which begins in early May. That's one of the reasons for the Friday night Gold-Blue scrimmage, so that the players will have the rest of the weekend to study for exams.

Having been through most of it, Stewart not only likes the idea, he wants to tweak it and make it even better. Next year he wants to finish not on the final weekend of the month, but one week earlier, in order to give the players more time to study for finals.

But what he really wants to do is make the whole finishing act an event.

"I can see this as a spring alumni weekend, where we have the Gold-Blue game on Friday night, schedule home baseball games for the weekend, have a home track meet scheduled,'' Stewart said. "I just see it as something to look forward to, something to put on your calendar.''

Indeed, the spring game at West Virginia has never been that big an event, at least from the standpoint of what some other schools around the country make it into. That's not to say that WVU is ever going to fill the stadium for a spring scrimmage like Alabama or Ohio State, but maybe if there's more to it than just the scrimmage it will draw more than a few thousand.

West Virginia officials are hoping this year's Friday night date will spark a bit of interest, if for no other reason than it is different. There's also going to be an alumni touch football game 20 minutes before the start of this year's Gold-Blue game, and Stewart said more than 100 former players have said they intend to come, although not all will play.

"We just want to make this a big event and there's no reason it can't be,'' Stewart said.

So you figure Bob Huggins is taking it easy for a few weeks now that his basketball team's season finally ended at the Final Four? Think again.

Take Monday, for example. He was in Philadelphia on a recruiting visit. He was also in Charleston for Monday night's Mountaineer Athletic Club scholarship dinner. He may or may not get home before the end of the week.

The word is Huggins has been on the road recruiting for the past five days. The question is, will he sign any players during the NCAA's spring signing period that began last week?

Good question. Sorry, I have no answer.

Two players the Mountaineers were hot after cast their lots elsewhere. Josh Selby of Baltimore signed with Kansas. Doron Lamb of Oak Hill [Va.] Academy chose Kentucky over WVU, Connecticut, Kansas and Arizona. Apparently, Huggins and company stayed nicely in the hunt for Lamb despite not receiving an official visit.

The name of Todd Mayo, brother of former state player of the year O.J., remains a possibility, but that's about it as far as known recruiting targets are concerned.

Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickman1@aol.com.