MORGANTOWN - It's hard to argue with West Virginia's football recruiting success in recent years, be it under Rich Rodriguez or Don Nehlen before him.

Face the facts. Sure, while Owen Schmitt fairly landed in WVU's lap, Pat White and Steve Slaton didn't just fall off of some bountiful high school tree. Ditto Noel Devine or Pacman (sorry, Adam) Jones. Nehlen didn't just get lucky with Grant Wiley or John Thornton, Major Harris or Jeff Hostetler (OK, so maybe Nehlen's daughter got lucky on that one), Brian Jozwiak or Mike Compton.

But if Mountaineer recruiting just feels somehow different in the early stages of the Bill Stewart era, there's a reason.

It is different.

It's high-tech, it's organized and it's even more intense.

"We've taken it to another level,'' Stewart said. "We probably neglected a little bit of football [during the spring] to do this.''

"This'' is the Mountaineers' almost obsessive quest to become among the most well-organized and hardest-working recruiting staffs in the country. And from the evaluation of players to the hours put into it and the organization of the recruiting "war room" at the Puskar Center, they seem well on the way.

Put it this way: If recruiting 18-year-old kids to play a man's game is an inexact science, West Virginia's staff is doing everything it can to perfect the craft.

"We took the ideas from everywhere I've been the last nine years,'' said Doc Holliday, who was lured back to his alma mater with a $400,000 paycheck to do just this. "We took the best things we did at N.C. State and the best things we did at Florida and combined them all.''

It's not as if Holliday just stole the ideas, of course. Widely regarded as one of the best recruiters in the country, he developed many of them as the recruiting coordinator at those two schools after leaving West Virginia a year before Nehlen retired.

Truth be told, there's nothing revolutionary involved here. We're mainly talking equal parts technology, organization and effort. Video coordinator Brian Kelly was hired in April and soon had clips of every player in West Virginia's sights in the system, broken down by offense, defense, specific positions and the assistant coach who is charged with recruiting him.

All of it is available at the touch of a button in the recruiting room, where the staff has ranked the players - to a certain extent from top to bottom, but more practically grouped as No. 1s, 2s or 3s. Virtually all of the 1s and 2s have been offered scholarships.

How those rankings were arrived at was one of the most time-consuming chores undertaken during the spring. Whereas in the past perhaps the head coach, a position coach and the recruiting coordinator might have scoured any particular player's game tapes, all 10 West Virginia coaches have watched every player on the board to arrive at the rankings.

"The reason is, when you get in there in crunch time and you're trying to sift through what's out there and what you need, no one can say, 'Man, I don't remember that guy,'" Stewart said. "The heck you don't remember him. We've spent two hours minimum, every day, on recruiting. We've had nine guys and me evaluating and saying OK to everyone on that board.''

And then there are the letters. Tons and tons of letters. For the past four months, every coach has written them, not just to his own prospects, but to every prospect.

"Every morning, five to eight [recruits] are sent 10 letters,'' Stewart said. "Every morning.''

Face the facts. Sure, while Owen Schmitt fairly landed in WVU's lap, Pat White and Steve Slaton didn't just fall off of some bountiful high school tree. Ditto Noel Devine or Pacman (sorry, Adam) Jones. Nehlen didn't just get lucky with Grant Wiley or John Thornton, Major Harris or Jeff Hostetler (OK, so maybe Nehlen's daughter got lucky on that one), Brian Jozwiak or Mike Compton.

But if Mountaineer recruiting just feels somehow different in the early stages of the Bill Stewart era, there's a reason.

It is different.

It's high-tech, it's organized and it's even more intense.

"We've taken it to another level,'' Stewart said. "We probably neglected a little bit of football [during the spring] to do this.''

"This'' is the Mountaineers' almost obsessive quest to become among the most well-organized and hardest-working recruiting staffs in the country. And from the evaluation of players to the hours put into it and the organization of the recruiting "war room" at the Puskar Center, they seem well on the way.

Put it this way: If recruiting 18-year-old kids to play a man's game is an inexact science, West Virginia's staff is doing everything it can to perfect the craft.

"We took the ideas from everywhere I've been the last nine years,'' said Doc Holliday, who was lured back to his alma mater with a $400,000 paycheck to do just this. "We took the best things we did at N.C. State and the best things we did at Florida and combined them all.''

It's not as if Holliday just stole the ideas, of course. Widely regarded as one of the best recruiters in the country, he developed many of them as the recruiting coordinator at those two schools after leaving West Virginia a year before Nehlen retired.

Truth be told, there's nothing revolutionary involved here. We're mainly talking equal parts technology, organization and effort. Video coordinator Brian Kelly was hired in April and soon had clips of every player in West Virginia's sights in the system, broken down by offense, defense, specific positions and the assistant coach who is charged with recruiting him.

All of it is available at the touch of a button in the recruiting room, where the staff has ranked the players - to a certain extent from top to bottom, but more practically grouped as No. 1s, 2s or 3s. Virtually all of the 1s and 2s have been offered scholarships.

How those rankings were arrived at was one of the most time-consuming chores undertaken during the spring. Whereas in the past perhaps the head coach, a position coach and the recruiting coordinator might have scoured any particular player's game tapes, all 10 West Virginia coaches have watched every player on the board to arrive at the rankings.

"The reason is, when you get in there in crunch time and you're trying to sift through what's out there and what you need, no one can say, 'Man, I don't remember that guy,'" Stewart said. "The heck you don't remember him. We've spent two hours minimum, every day, on recruiting. We've had nine guys and me evaluating and saying OK to everyone on that board.''

And then there are the letters. Tons and tons of letters. For the past four months, every coach has written them, not just to his own prospects, but to every prospect.

"Every morning, five to eight [recruits] are sent 10 letters,'' Stewart said. "Every morning.''

It doesn't stop there, though. The potential recruits are constantly being re-evaluated and re-ranked. Perhaps someone else jumped into the mix. Maybe someone committed - either to WVU or someone else. All of that serves to change the recruits' availability or the team's needs.

For instance, on the board where players are grouped as 1s, 2s or 3s by position, there are eight running backs at the top of the board as 1s. Two are among West Virginia's current 10 verbal commitments going into this weekend - a speed back (Daquan Hargrett of Miami) and a power back (Shawn Alston of Virginia).

Here's where the evaluations get tricky. While that's all the backs West Virginia intends to take this year, if any of the other running backs rated as 1s jump on board, the Mountaineers will take them. That's just a commodity that's hard to turn away (as would be 1s at almost any position). Then it becomes a matter of both adjusting the number of players wanted at other positions to stay within the limit of 25 recruits and, perhaps, thinking about what to do with the surplus at a position - turning a running back into a slot receiver or a defensive back, or making a fullback into a linebacker, a tight end or a defensive lineman.

Obviously, that can get tricky. But you do what you have to do in order to get the best players possible.

"If a one jumps on board, we'll take him. We'll scratch somebody else to take him,'' Stewart said. "If a two jumps in there, we'll say, 'Wait a minute. Let's re-evaluate.'"

Scratching somebody else doesn't necessarily mean pulling a scholarship offer, but maybe reducing the number of players desired at another position. For instance, Stewart wants six linemen in next year's class. The six he gets aren't all going to be among the 1s on the board. That's just reality. And if they need to reduce the number of line recruits from six to five (probably eliminating some 2s) to accommodate a running back ranked as a No. 1, so be it.

It's the same deal at linebacker, where Stewart wants five in the class. But that's not as much of a crapshoot because it's easier to turn a recruited fullback or safety into a linebacker than to shift someone to the offensive line.

See how dicey it gets? The thing is, all that evaluation and organization makes it a lot easier to make those calls.

"It's like an NFL draft room,'' Stewart said. "It really is.''

The unanswered question is, of course, how much of a difference it all makes. While Stewart raves about what Holliday and the rest of the staff have managed to do this spring and about the quality of the 10 players who have committed so far, none have ever played a down of football for the Mountaineers. Neither have any of the players WVU signed without the benefit of all of this recruiting wizardry in February.

In other words, so far Nehlen's and Rodriguez's recruiting was more successful because there's a record of what those recruits became once they arrived. It could be a few years before we know anything about any of Stewart's recruits.

Here's perhaps the most promising aspect of all, however: Stewart and Holliday say that all 10 current commitments already have qualifying test scores or grade point averages that suggest academics will be no problem at all.

With few exceptions, that's going to be a requirement as important as a 40-yard dash time or a bench press max. And that would be a welcome change from springs and summers filled with speculation about how many of WVU's recruits will pass academic muster.

"We took a shot on some kids this year, sure,'' Stewart said. "But we had 34 days to hire seven guys and sign 25 kids. But we did OK.

"Was it great? No. Is this great now? Well, it's on the way to greatness.''

Reach Dave Hickman at 348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.