A seemingly irritated West Virginia head coach Bill Stewart approached the podium Saturday inside Milan Puskar Stadium, moments after the Mountaineers’ 17-9 win over visiting Louisville. Expectedly, Stewart was content with earning another win -- dismal as it was -- but the coach also showed signs of frustration.
“I’m sure to some, it would be a boring game,” Stewart said. “To us, maybe so, but I’ll take the win in the Big East any day of the week. It’s a shame when a Big East win is no longer good enough.”
Stewart summed up what is becoming more and more apparent about the 2009 Mountaineers, who improved to 7-2 overall and 3-1 in Big East play. “They’re not real good. They’re not real bad,” the coach said. “We’ve got to get better.”
UL (3-6, 0-4 BIG EAST) held WVU to just 273 total yards and a measly three of 11 on third down plays. Mountaineers quarterback Jarrett Brown went just nine of 17 for 94 yards, a touchdown and an interception, which was his eighth of the season. WVU running back Noel Devine carried the ball 13 times for 56 yards, which was the second consecutive game Devine was held below 60 rush yards.
Simply enough, Stewart summed up the offensive woes by saying, “It’s frustrating. We’re still a work in progress.”
However, the Mountaineers did score an imperative boost on defense, holding the Cardinals to 301 total yards and nine points off of three field goals.
“I was really proud of the way our defense just set the tone the entire day,” said Stewart.
Leading the defensive charge for WVU was sophomore defensive end Julian Miller, who turned it a stellar performance, accumulating six tackles, three sacks netting a loss of 19 yards and a pass breakup.
“I thought he was just a real force out there, particularly when he was the only starter on the defensive line playing,” said Stewart, who because of sustained injuries had to juggle his lineup and play with three defensive ends up front, during the second half.
Miller absorbed Stewart’s message throughout the week leading up to Saturday’s meeting with UofL.
“Coach Stew has been preaching all week: ‘Just give a little more’ and that’s one of the things that definitely I was trying to do,” he said.
Miller proved it was his time when WVU was clinging to its eight-point lead with less than three minutes to go. The Cardinals had the football just inside WVU territory and hoped to piece together a last chance comeback drive. UofL quarterback Will Stein was sacked by Miller on both first and second down, then threw incomplete passes on third and fourth down attempts, which put the game away for the Mountaineers.
Of Miller’s first sack, he explained, “I came off on the outside with [linebacker] Ovid [Goulbourne]. I wrapped around him. The tackle stayed on him so I had a clear shot to the quarterback.”
And about the next game-changing play, “The second one … I was tired,” Miller said. “I just got back down and the next thing you know, I was supposed to shoot the A-gap and the guard didn’t have any help from the center. I was just one-on-one with the guard. I beat him right up the middle.”
But of course, Miller and the rest of the defenses’ efforts would have been for naught had WVU been unable to produce some points, which happened, just not often.
WVU slot receiver/running back Jock Sanders dazzled the home crowd with quick cuts, bursts and jukes through the Cardinals’ defense. Sanders took over the majority of the Mountaineers’ rushing offense, 
spelling Devine for most of the second half, who exited the game with a minor injury of sorts that Stewart has not yet disclosed, officially. Sanders carried the football 12 times for 66 yards and caught three passes for 20 yards and a touchdown, which came in the second quarter.
“The guy probably should’ve been a boxer because I’ve never seen anybody hit him,” said Stewart. “He slips this, he slips that, he’s always going forward.”
Sanders said he’s never been inside a boxing ring, but offered up, “I guess that’s what I got a scholarship for -- just my athletic ability.”
WVU running backs/slot receivers coach Chris Beatty explained Sanders’ playmaking ability in-depth: “I think he’s got great balance and great vision. He does so many things that people miss in the hole,” he said. “He can see things a lot of times before they happen. That’s just instincts.”
UofL had jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second quarter from a 37-yard field goal from Chris Philpott, who added points for the Cardinals later in the game on kicks of 44 yards and 29 yards. However, it’s nothing new for WVU to get off to a slow start in games this season.
“You let guys stick around, they feel that they got a chance to beat you,“ said Sanders. “That was the case right there. We got started slow in the first half. We couldn’t get our offense going. We were just kind of like … not ready, just walking around or whatever.”
Giving WVU a little more breathing room were two third quarter scores -- the first being a nine-yard touchdown rush on a reverse by Tavon Austin; the later was a 42-yard field goal by Tyler Bitancurt.
Cardinals’ running back Darius Ashley carried the ball a game-high 33 times for 164 yards, in the losing effort.