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MORGANTOWN -- ?
I know, words belong in the lede, but there are no words to express any analysis of what is now shaping up as Rich Rodriguez's first team of his second term as coach.
In truth, one ? may not be enough to express just how scrambled the situation is. You may need ?? to capture the essence of the situation.
You talk about challenges, this one is a whopper, maybe the greatest challenge any WVU coach has ever faced.
Consider that Rodriguez takes over a losing team, but not much of it. As many as 65 or more players may be new to the Mountaineers this season.
They do so in a system that is new to almost everyone.
They do so under a coach who will almost certainly push them harder than any coach they've ever had before.
They come to a new staff in a college game that is changing its parameters to rules that haven't even yet been adopted.
We are in nowhereland. Or is it somewhereland? Probably it's really whoknowswhereland.
It's a new NCAA, a new Big 12.
Did someone say it's a new ball game? If they didn't, they should have.
We mentioned that WVU football coaches are used to big challenges. Which were the biggest challenges?
Truth is, Rodriguez may be involved in the TWO biggest.
Like he came into his first big time head coaching job to replace a College Football Hall of Fame coach who in 20 years had won more games than any WVU coach had, who had reached the doorstep of a national championship, who had twice had unbeaten regular season teams.
Don Nehlen had defined WVU football but an ouchy back and time had caught up with him.
It was time for a change and Rodriguez, who never had been a head coach on the Division I level, was the choice. He was replacing his own coach when he played at WVU, had a shiny new offensive concept but held over players from an antiquated system.
His first season was disastrous but fans then understood that patience was a virtue and they gave him time to lay a foundation and build.
Today? Don't know if they are that patient. They've suffered through too many disappointments in both basketball and football and with many players now making more money than the fans themselves do and with rosters rolling over almost as much as Rover does, patience is looked upon more as sin than a virtue.
When Nehlen took the reins from Frank Cignetti, the situation was certainly different but still a major challenge for WVU had suffered mightily during the Cignetti years, although not as much as he did as he fought a major physical problem while trying to run the football program.
WVU had not had a winning season in Cignetti's four years and Nehlen was an unknown addition who had been a head coach at Bowling Green and then spent time learning at the knee of Bo Schembechler at Michigan.
The WVU situation was not a good one with Schembechler counseling Nehlen to pass it up and wait for a better offer, but as it turned out, this was a better situation than it looked. A new stadium was being built, John Denver was ready to introduce 'Country Roads' at its opening, which was Nehlen's first game.
The talent pool was better than most realized with the likes of quarterback and Darryl Talley to build around. More importantly, the fit of Nehlen with West Virginians' idea of what football was supposed to be was like putting peanut butter and chocolate together in the same candy bar.
A decade before Nehlen came onto the scene another coach was asked to take over a WVU program that had reached heights it hadn't seen since 1922 when Clarence 'Doc' Spears had put together a 25-2-1 run on seasons 10-0-1, 7-1-1 and 8-1-0.
That coach would, like Nehlen, become a Hall of Fame coach. His name was Bobby Bowden and he had been Jim Carlin's offensive coordinator as he had gone from 3-5-2 in his debut year to 10-1 in his final season, scoring a stunning 14-3 victory over South Carolina in a rain-soaked Peach Bowl.
Bowden, at his inventive best as offensive coordinator for that game, had put in a wishbone offense that befuddled South Carolina as Eddie Williams, who replaced fullback Jim Braxton for the game, rushed for a then school record 208 yards on 35 carries.
Bowden started the 1970s on carrying on Carlin's winning ways but a pair of difficult seasons and the memory of an unforgivable loss in his first Backyard Brawl in which he blew a 35-8 halftime lead to fall 36-35 turned the fans on him to the point that he was actually hung in effigy.
Regaining stride with a 9-3 season in 1975 he exited for Florida State -- where he would become one of the winningest coaches in college football history. He spent 33 years with the Seminoles.
The truth is that every coaching change carries its challenges, but what Rich Rodriguez has bitten off this year is unlike any of the challenges he had previously and that includes at Michigan and Arizona.
While the pressure that came with walking out on WVU and taking over the storied Michigan program after a devastating loss to Pitt was probably unmatched, but the intrigue that accompanies him back home this season makes it impossible to predict how the season will go, let alone his second Mountaineer coaching career.
In many ways -- and this has nothing to do with Rodriguez -- what has happened in college football has been most unfair on the fans, who are finding themselves in a position where each year they are saying goodbye almost before they have said their hellos to the home team players