New coaches Stewart, Marshall have seen football from top to bottom

Their paths have converged in Morgantown, Marshall to handle the wide receivers and Stewart the tight ends.

Each has a tale to tell about what it is like elsewhere. Neither came from a place like power conference football in the NCAA, even though the game is the same.

Each, of course, was familiar with the WVU facility and program before they arrived to interview for or start their jobs. Stewart was a youth running around when his father was a coach, and Marshall worked as an offensive coordinator under Gerad Parker in 2021.

Stewart admitted this was his dream job when he arrived.

“I got goosebumps when I walked back in,” he said.

Marshall’s return was a bit different.

“No one was there to let me in and I didn’t have a key card,” Marshall said.

But fear not.

“I knew a secret way in,” he said, remembering his days as a grad assistant.

Marshall left WVU for his first full-time gig at VMI, which it turned out was nothing like football at WVU or Purdue, where he played as a wide receiver.

“It was a unique experience. It’s a military school, a smaller school,” Marshall noted, there being just about 1,700 students in attendance. “So, there’s some things you have to work with there. It’s a school with less resources when it comes to athletics. You have to put your hands into more things and it allows it to grow and develop more quickly.

“There is nobody to do it for you. You have to do everything on your own. If our laundry man was sick, you had to go do laundry. If the lines weren’t right on the field, you had to go put the lines on the field. If the lights were out, you had to go turn on the lights”

And, the budget being what it was, the last man out made sure he turned out the lights.

It was different for the players, too.

“There’s things you got to deal with outside of being a student-athlete. You’re an athlete and a cadet. They wake up every morning and they better be out there at 7 a.m, in formation before the day gets started. They didn’t sleep in apartments. They sleep in barracks. It ain’t dorms, it’s barracks,” Marshall said.

“It really is a brotherhood because they go through the sacrifice together. They are special. It isn’t easy, I tell our guys here, ‘You guys are special. I don’t know if I could have gone through that.’”

Stewart saw the gold-plated side of the world, where football players were football players, not cadets. Where they didn’t split time and, despite some recent disappointments, the Steelers still remain a cherished franchise.

Stewart looked and learned.

“I learned how to operate at a high level,” Stewart said. “That started with the Rooney family and the whole organization, coach (Mike) Tomlin,” he said. “I learned how to do things right, to do things in a detailed way and I was appreciative of that.

“I was around for a lot of really cool stuff. Had some success, had some adversity .. but the biggest thing was I just learned how to go through the process, a whole year of a football season, watching guys grow.”

It’s funny, kids come to WVU as freshmen and are wide-eyed and awestruck, and it isn’t all that much different from jumping from college to the pros.

“The coolest thing was watching a young guy come into the room, being a rookie and developing over a couple of years. That’s going to be my goal, to take these tight ends or really any player on the team and watch them through their process and be a resource for them.

“I’m just going to tell them that they have to execute every facet of the game to be successful at the highest level. You have to take care of everything ... take care of your body as a professional, take care of the playbook,” Stewart went on.

“You have to be available. You can’t be in the training room because if you are in the training room, you don’t get reps. If you’re not a first-round draft pick — those are the only guys who get a pass when you start, so you have to earn your spot if you’re third round or you have to earn your spot.”

Stewart plans to merge his experience in that into his coaching at this level, letting his players know what it takes to make it to the top. Hopefully it goes across the whole team.

WVU’s Pro Day is Monday and those players will be working out hoping to jump the NFL, but it’s almost inconceivable to them how big that jump is.

Stewart has seen the talent there up close and personally.

“The first thing that jumps out is the speed,” Stewart said. “Coach Tomlin believes in tackling in practice, when a lot of teams don’t (and there may be a message there about defensive football). We were one of the few that tackle to the ground in football.

“The first thing that struck me is the speed of the linebackers, the speed of the D-line, the speed of TJ Watt. He can run with receivers in the NFL. It’s the speed and the athleticism that sets the NFL apart and you have to be ready to match that if you get there.”

As the two newcomers and since both are working with receivers, Marshall and Stewart come in almost as a set.

“Being here together helps us both,” Marshall said. “When he says ‘What’s this mean?’ I can explain it to him having been here before and he’ll lean on me for certain things. He’s been a great resource here, just being that is blue and gold; he is WVU.

“We’ll go out to dinner sometimes and people will come up and say ‘Oh, my God, Blaine, wow, I remember you when you were 5 years old.’ We’re always laughing and messing with him about that. Working with him is awesome.

“We work together. It’s not like we’re stepping on each other’s toes. I tell him, we’re married when we’re out there. We have to work together.”