MORGANTOWN - Keith Tandy freely admits that having what amounted to two head football coaches was a bit awkward.

That's no longer an issue, of course, for West Virginia's football team, what with Bill Stewart's Friday resignation and the immediate elevation of Dana Holgorsen into the top spot.

And while Tandy wasn't happy to see Stewart go, he can't help but think that things might now begin to return to normal.

"It relieves the tension a little bit, I guess,'' West Virginia's senior cornerback said Saturday, a few hours after Stewart met with the members of the Mountaineer team who happened to be in town and wished them well. "With Coach Stew and Coach Holgorsen both around, it was hard to figure out who to listen to and who was in charge. Now it's more clear cut and we can get back to work.''

Tandy is really the first Mountaineer player to flat-out admit that the arrangement whereby Stewart was the head coach for one more year and Holgorsen was already on staff and set to replace him was awkward, at best. There were really no outward signs that the situation was causing any friction or confusion among the players, but consensus outside the program since the deal was put in place seven months ago was that it would be confusing.

"It was especially hard for me because I never thought Coach Holgorsen was going to be my [head] coach. I'm a senior and when I graduate, then he was going to take over,'' Tandy said. "But I had questions, sure. And a lot of my teammates were the same way: 'Is Stew the head man or is Holgorsen the head man?'

"It's good that the distraction has been eliminated. When you're out there playing football, you want to focus on doing that and making plays and not worrying about which coach you're going to listen to.''

Stewart, who resigned under pressure Friday after a week of accusations that he attempted to undermine Holgorsen, returned to the Puskar Center Saturday morning and spoke to as many players as could be rounded up on short notice, although many had left town for the weekend.

"His message was that this program is bigger than any one individual,'' said offensive lineman Jeff Braun.

The messages now, however, are all coming from Holgorsen, the 39-year-old offensive mastermind who was hired in December to revamp WVU's offense and then succeed Stewart after this season. The timetable for his ascension to the top spot was merely accelerated by last week's events.

The players, though, don't expect much to change, at least not immediately.

"Coach Stewart always let his assistants do the coaching, so I doubt much is going to change,'' Braun said. "We know how they're going to coach [after going through five weeks of spring practice] and it shouldn't be any different.''

The sudden nature of the changes, though, has left the players a bit dizzy after a week in which their only source of information about what was happening was media accounts and social networking. And while the whole thing seemed to drag on during the week, the reality is that in the end it was all concluded within a matter of days.

"It came out of nowhere,'' said Tandy, who for days was bombarded by questions from friends and family and had to tell them he knew nothing. "And the next thing I knew, it was all over.''

Not everyone, though, sees the change as anything that will clear the air. A few, like defensive end Bruce Irvin, didn't see much difficulty with having Stewart and Holgorsen co-exist, so now having only one of them remain isn't that big an issue.

"We'll do the same things, just with a different head coach,'' said Irvin. "It's pretty much going to be the same. Stewart ran what he ran and Holgorsen ran what he ran.''

But in the end, just the awkwardness of the entire situation was beginning to wear on some. Now that awkwardness - at least from the standpoint of how many head coaches the team has - has been relieved.

"We came in [Saturday] morning, had a small workout and it felt like a weight was off your back,'' Tandy said.

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