As the Couch Burns

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H/T @dmiller1856 for the title.

In the absence of important Hokie football news, and anything compelling to watch on television, let's take a couple of minutes to review the soap opera being broadcast out of Morgantown.

After 3:00 AM on May 18 offensive coordinator and head coach in waiting Dana Holgorsen was asked to leave the Mardi Gras Casino & Resort .

Police records indicate Metro 911 received a call from the casino at 3:13 a.m. that night. A "white male" was said to be "refusing to cooperate with the casino's management." Casino supervisors had the male detained at the time.

...

Nitro Police spokesman Patrolman Raymond Blake said Holgorsen cooperated with law enforcement when they arrived at the scene and did not appear to be in violation of any laws.

"We got up there and spoke to the male and said, 'Hey, they want you to leave,'" Blake said. "He complied, walked out, sat out on a bench, waited for the taxi, and when the taxi arrived he got in and left.

Holgorsen could have hit on one too many slots, pulled a chip off a table, smoked in a non-smoking area, drank too much, cursed at a table, done anything really. It doesn't really matter. He didn't get arrested or commit a crime. Still, it's damning to anyone's image to have the fuzz called on them in the early morning.

On May 28th Chuck Landon of Herald-Dispatch reported Holgorsen had been involved in, "as many as six alcohol-related incidents in the last six months."

The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register reported Saturday that Holgorsen allegedly was asked to leave both a bar inside Oglebay Park and, later, at Wheeling Island Hotel, Casino and Racetrack earlier this year.

Sources say there was also an incident at Pete Dye Golf Club in Bridgeport, W.Va., which involved Holgerson being told to leave and not come back. And, then, there are rumors of three incidents at the Morgantown hotel in which he lives, including being banned from the hotel bar.

Also, there are allegations he was asked to leave the Union Pub And Grill in Huntington on Oct. 28, 2008. That's the night Marshall upset Houston, 37-23, at Edwards Stadium in a game nationally televised by ESPN. Holgorsen was the Cougars' offensive coordinator.

So, we were led to believe Holgorsen really likes to party. I like to party, and I bet you do too. We can get blotto, cause a scene and no one cares. However, and for whatever reason, it's news when someone that's less than two years away from being the head football coach at a BCS school does so. Matters are complicated when the head coach being replaced is squeaky clean. At this point it was perfectly acceptable to point and laugh at WVU.

Last Thursday, June 2nd a WVU source revealed the claims by the Herald-Dispatch regarding Holgorsen were false.

A WVU source said Wednesday the university will not take any action, but "knows the Herald-Dispatch story had blatant inaccuracies."

Booooo. For the most part Holgorsen's name was cleared. Then the very next day the WVU Board of Governors passed a vote that will allow the sale of beer in Milan Puskar Stadium in 2011. The residents of Shelbyville were delighted. However it was only an intermission, a reprieve from all the upcoming drama.

Who helped Landon come up with a handful of erroneous incidents? Bill Stewart. That's right.

Multiple high-ranking sources with knowledge of the situation have informed The Smoking Musket that Bill Stewart allegedly served as one source of the contentious Herald-Dispatch report of Dana Holgorsen's purported alcohol-related incidents.

Stewart's involvement is worse than Holgorsen actually getting tossed out of every place with a liquor license in West By God. According to former Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, West Virginia football beat writer Colin Dunlap Stewart did indeed have an agenda against Holgorsen.

"...He (Stewart) tried to flame-throw the guy (Holgorsen) in December by calling me and at least one other reporter because the reporter and I discussed it. He said, 'can you get the word 'scumbag' tattooed on the front of the sports page?'

"'(Stewart said) you need to dig up this dirt. You need to get it out on this guy.' And I said, 'hey man, I'm not a part of some witch hunt.'"


I know you're taking my newspaper in the morning, and now I'll be able to prove it. Original is via.

My logical conclusions are either Stewart didn't believe Holgorsen was qualified enough for the job, or he wanted to torpedo the succession. Either Stewart didn't get a vote of confidence from Director of Athletics Oliver Luck.

Mildly put, everything that's transpired over the last few weeks at West Virginia is comical. Schadenfreude: watching the 'Eers squirm is as pleasurable as grabbing a gnat off a soon-to-be-hit golfball and squeezing it into nothing. Rich Rod leaving home for the better looking girl that he couldn't handle has led to a series of events where nothing has gone right for WVU.

Unfortunately, in all probability Stewart drastically cut his tenure at WVU short, and Holgorsen is capable of turning things around.

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