WVU Athletics is a Snow Ball Rolling Down a Mountain

Let's take a quick look at WVU over the past two years:

• Michigan hires John Beilein WVU current head basketball coach


• WVU hires Bob Huggins who just spent one year at Kansas State


• Michigan hires Rich Rodriguez, WVU current head football coach


• WVU goes "MSU and Bobby Williams" and hires Bill Stewart after a Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma.


• WVU gives Bob Huggins a lifetime contract


• WVU gets into a messy court case with RR over the buyout which they win but still pay outstanding legal fees


• WVU is a top 10 team to open the season and then lose at East Carolina.


• WVU awards Bill Stewart for the lose with a 6 year contract


• Bill and team go to Colorado and this happens:

So what could be next? Well this......................

Some Board of Governor members and donors are surprised and angry to find that the six-year contract recently awarded to new West Virginia football coach Bill Stewart included not only an extra year over the original terms, but also a previously off-the-table buyout clause, sources said. The deal could entail more money than was included in Rich Rodriguez's infamously litigated deal.

If Stewart were to be fired before Jan. 3, 2009, the university would have to pay him $4.125 million. The Mountaineers, ranked No. 8 before the season began, have started 1-2, without a victory against a major college opponent, and dropped out of the Top 25 for the first time since October 2005.

"People are livid," said one person in a position of responsibility with the university, though requesting anonymity. "It's malfeasance, whoever did it. 'Cause it didn't have to be done. The coach didn't want it. And that wasn't Mike Garrison, he was gone."

The original offer sheet contained a $1 million flat-fee termination clause that was scratched out and initialed by athletic director Ed Pastilong before Stewart, 56, signed it early Jan. 3, the morning of his post-Fiesta Bowl hiring

It's just not right," said the source with the university. "It's not good for the university, whoever did it." The contract was announced after West Virginia lost at East Carolina, 24-3, and before Thursday, when the Mountaineers fell in overtime at Colorado, 17-14, in a game where ESPN announcers referred to "mass confusion" on the visitors' sideline.

"They're furious," a university donor, who also requested anonymity, said of acquaintances on the Board of Governors and other top donors

Nicely done West Virgina, Nicely done.