It might be the last thing he wants to see Friday night when the spring concludes with the Gold-Blue game at Mountaineer Field.

No, he might not actually admit as much. After all, competition is what the game is all about, and he wants every guy he puts on the field to compete.

But Stewart has also set the game up as the best against the rest. The Blue team, on both offense and defense, will be made up of pretty much everyone who figures to play a role next fall when the season begins. The White team will be made up of those who aren't ready to contribute and those who never will.

And to see the game itself become competitive? Like a tie game at halftime? Well, that might not bode well for this team's prospects for success.

A royal thrashing by the haves over the have-nots? That would be just fine.

"We want to get the ones to work together. We've not done that at all,'' Stewart said Wednesday after the team's final real practice of the spring. "We've done mix and match all spring and that's what our goal was. Now, on Friday night, we want to close and try to put something together.''

Think of it almost as a dry run for the season opener against Coastal Carolina. And, in truth, that figures to be a pretty good analogy. After all, a Division I-AA team that won just five games a year ago is likely to be roughly as talented as West Virginia's non-playing reserves, right?

The only kink in the plan, of course, is that West Virginia's starters won't have their starting quarterback. Stewart definitively ruled Geno Smith out of Friday night's scrimmage, which means Coley White will take every snap for both teams.

"I'll get some ice ready,'' White said with a smile.

But if the scrubs put up much of a fight against the starters Friday night, Stewart might want to have some ice ready for their egos, too.

But truthfully, that shouldn't be necessary.

"We've mixed and matched pretty much all spring,'' Stewart said. "They've hit and we've had the ones mixed with the twos and the threes. Now we want to go ones vs. the rest for this game and see what they can do.''

Given that the format for Friday night's Gold-Blue game is the best against the rest, might that little touch football game between the school's old-timers have a chance to be the most competitive thing that happens that night?

Really, now, where else will you ever see Major Harris and Jake Kelchner as the opposing quarterbacks?

Those are two of roughly 100 or so former Mountaineer players who have said they will return for a weekend that, for them, will include a couple of informal gatherings, a golf outing, a visit to WVU Children's Hospital and the 20-minute touch football game that will be played. (It starts at 7 p.m. with the Gold-Blue game to follow). Of the 100, perhaps half will actually play, the rest experiencing a lack of desire for it or an absence of their old physical skills.

The oldest of the group is Louis Birurakis, a guard who played in 1944 and again in 1948-50 and is now 84. The youngest will be those in the 2009 senior class, or at least those who aren't in NFL mini-camps (which means most of them). Anyone want to see Fred Wyant throw a pass in the flat to Wes Ours? Or Harris hook up with Reggie Rembert again? Shoot, J.T. Thomas might play in both games - the current linebacker in the scrimmage and his dad in the old-timers game.

The best quarterback among the old-timers might not even play in the touch football game. That would be Rasheed Marshall, who is trying to get a position as a graduate assistant on the football staff next season. A couple of weeks ago when we ran into him on the sideline at a practice he talked like he wouldn't play.

Marshall is the best quarterback of the lot, you ask? Well, not from the historical aspect, of course (although he was the 2004 Big East offensive player of the year). But given that Harris is in his 40s, Kelchner reaches that milestone in June and Marshall is just a couple of years removed from the NFL and is working as a personal trainer in his native Pittsburgh, well, don't you have to figure he might be a bit better equipped than those two right now?

Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.