West Virginia University officials are staying off the record and under the radar on the story of the Bill Stewart-Dana Holgorsen leak, but a separate report in Charleston, W. Va.'s Daily Mail dovetails with several items mentioned in the account of high personnel drama published this morning by our own Smoking Musket. Remember that bit at the end about Stewart allegedly leaving his new contract with the Mountaineers unsigned? According to the Daily Mail, that delay may have been on the part of the university wanting to investigate the source of the Holgorsen story -- and suspecting their own lame-duck head coach as the culprit -- rather than due to any recalcitrance from Stewart.
The author, Mike Casazza, noted last night on Twitter that the university's become "attuned to the pursuit of libel" since the emergence of the story in the Huntington papers, and is quite circumspect in his writing, but the dots are readily connectable at a casual glance [emphasis added]:
Two sources said the contract has been awaiting signatures for weeks, but has been tabled as the athletic department determines who has and has not participated in fabricating stories about Holgorsen and compromising the coaching transition.
WVU Athletic Director Oliver Luck would not acknowledge on the university's search and suspicions, which are said to be more specific than expansive.
For more on this latest tableau out of Machiavellian Morgantown, join SB Nation's The Smoking Musket.