MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — There’s a seat in the West Virginia coaches’ box reserved for offensive coordinator Joe Wickline. That’s newsworthy because during 34 seasons of college coaching, Wickline has coached precisely one game from upstairs.
More precisely, one half.
When Oklahoma State faced Washington State in Seattle for the 2008 opener, Mike Gundy encouraged his offensive line coach to try working from the box. When Wickline agreed—on the condition that each of the five linemen had his own set of headphones—he established a protocol by which each player would return to the bench after a series, put on the headphones, grab a water bottle and listen up.
While Wickline spoke, only the center was allowed to respond.
By the time OSU opened the second half, Gundy spotted Wickline on the sideline and the experiment was scrapped.
“I told Coach Gundy I think I’ve had all the fun I can stand,” Wickline recalled Tuesday.
Too tactile to experience the game from an elevated booth, too disconnected from his players, Wickline wasn’t ready to trade the up-close energy for an overhead perspective.
“Up there, you can’t get the players’ eyes, and you can’t get the emotions, and you can’t get you hands on guys when you need to.”
That’s precisely the reasoning behind West Virginia defensive coordinator Tony Gibson being an on-the-field coach. While trusting position coaches upstairs to chart opponents’ personnel and alignments, Gibson requires a first-hand feel at game-time.
“You can look in a kid’s eyes and see if he’s rattled or not,” he said. “You can read where they’re at and I can make sure they’re hearing me. There’s dynamics down there on the sidelines you can’t get up in the box.”
Mountaineers head coach Dana Holgorsen laughingly conceded “yeah right” to the notion of directing Gibson upstairs. Yet Wickline said Holgorsen wants him in the booth Saturday when WVU meets Missouri.
“Wasn’t my decision. That was the head football coach, and I usually do what he tells me,” Wickline said. “Maybe he’s been on the sideline with me before and he just wants to get rid of me. Maybe he said, ‘I wish our press box was even higher, Wick.’”
Then again, every bit of humor holds some truth. In 2010, when Oklahoma State jumped from 61st to No. 3 in total offense under Holgorsen’s play-calling, he and Wickline reportedly engaged in sideline barking during their first game together. It was a turf war lined with clashing ideologies that the men resolved to make the Cowboys explosive to the tune of 520 yards and 44 points per game.
Six seasons later, they’re reunited in Morgantown, and again it’s Holgorsen calling the plays. Yet the real impetus behind repositioning Wickline involves the presence of offensive line coach Ron Crook on the sideline. During that brief-lived eye-in-the-sky experiment at OSU, Wickline didn’t have such a sideline resource.
“Coach Crook, he’s right down there with the linemen, and he’s been doing that for years. I think it’s going to be a great combination. It’s not like we have only one O-line guy and he’s up in the box,” Wickline said.
“It’s a different gig now for me. It’ll be new, but I understand my role.”