MORGANTOWN - The lower level of the Puskar Center is, in a way, a monument to the school's former football coaching staff.

In the middle is a spacious new locker room. Over here is a remodeled players' lounge and visitors' locker room. Over there are the refurbished training facilities, not to mention the wide array of weightlifting and conditioning equipment installed over the years.

And then there's a new piece of equipment, the Hypoxico Chamber. It's designed to help athletes train for high altitude.

"That was one of Rich and Mike Barwis' deals,'' West Virginia coach Bill Stewart said Tuesday, referring to former Mountaineer coach Rich Rodriguez and his strength and conditioning coordinator.

Normally, the piece of equipment would not be relevant to West Virginia's football team. A week from Thursday, though, the Mountaineers play Colorado in Boulder, at an elevation (5,430 feet) of roughly a mile above sea level.

Despite that, don't expect the Hypoxico Chamber to get much of a workout between now and the time the team leaves for Colorado on Tuesday. For one thing, it's tough to fit a football team into a chamber the size of a walk-in closet, although if any of the players want to give it a try they are welcome to do so.

But the truth is, Stewart simply doesn't buy into altitude as a major issue for a college football team. For a runner or a boxer or even a basketball player, perhaps.

"But a football play lasts about four seconds. The longest is six seconds,'' Stewart said. "Think about it. By the time a kid throws a deep ball downfield and by the time a kid runs under it, it's maybe six seconds. Usually a play's about four seconds.''

In other words, it is Stewart's contention that while there are certain undeniable differences in playing in a slightly oxygen-deprived setting, much of it - at least as far as football is concerned - is overblown.

"I just don't think that's a big problem. I think it's kind of comical,'' Stewart said Tuesday. "I lived out there for four years at the Air Force Academy and we were at 6,800 feet. Now, when we went on our retreat with Coach [Fisher] DeBerry, we went up to almost 10,000 feet. Now that's a problem. I jogged up there. But [at Air Force] I ran 100 miles a week, 50 weeks a year for four years.''

And while there were certainly effects during runs, it's just not the same as playing a football game, Stewart maintains.

"All I'm going to ask our guys to do is strain for six seconds,'' Stewart said. "And with the 40-second clock, you're going to have 35 to close to 40 seconds to rest.''

In a way, Stewart seems to be going against the grain in arguing that elevation cannot have a serious effect on the performance of athletes. There are those that will argue that even four-second bursts, when repeated 80 times over a three-hour period, will begin to take a toll.

MORGANTOWN - The lower level of the Puskar Center is, in a way, a monument to the school's former football coaching staff.

In the middle is a spacious new locker room. Over here is a remodeled players' lounge and visitors' locker room. Over there are the refurbished training facilities, not to mention the wide array of weightlifting and conditioning equipment installed over the years.

And then there's a new piece of equipment, the Hypoxico Chamber. It's designed to help athletes train for high altitude.

"That was one of Rich and Mike Barwis' deals,'' West Virginia coach Bill Stewart said Tuesday, referring to former Mountaineer coach Rich Rodriguez and his strength and conditioning coordinator.

Normally, the piece of equipment would not be relevant to West Virginia's football team. A week from Thursday, though, the Mountaineers play Colorado in Boulder, at an elevation (5,430 feet) of roughly a mile above sea level.

Despite that, don't expect the Hypoxico Chamber to get much of a workout between now and the time the team leaves for Colorado on Tuesday. For one thing, it's tough to fit a football team into a chamber the size of a walk-in closet, although if any of the players want to give it a try they are welcome to do so.

But the truth is, Stewart simply doesn't buy into altitude as a major issue for a college football team. For a runner or a boxer or even a basketball player, perhaps.

"But a football play lasts about four seconds. The longest is six seconds,'' Stewart said. "Think about it. By the time a kid throws a deep ball downfield and by the time a kid runs under it, it's maybe six seconds. Usually a play's about four seconds.''

In other words, it is Stewart's contention that while there are certain undeniable differences in playing in a slightly oxygen-deprived setting, much of it - at least as far as football is concerned - is overblown.

"I just don't think that's a big problem. I think it's kind of comical,'' Stewart said Tuesday. "I lived out there for four years at the Air Force Academy and we were at 6,800 feet. Now, when we went on our retreat with Coach [Fisher] DeBerry, we went up to almost 10,000 feet. Now that's a problem. I jogged up there. But [at Air Force] I ran 100 miles a week, 50 weeks a year for four years.''

And while there were certainly effects during runs, it's just not the same as playing a football game, Stewart maintains.

"All I'm going to ask our guys to do is strain for six seconds,'' Stewart said. "And with the 40-second clock, you're going to have 35 to close to 40 seconds to rest.''

In a way, Stewart seems to be going against the grain in arguing that elevation cannot have a serious effect on the performance of athletes. There are those that will argue that even four-second bursts, when repeated 80 times over a three-hour period, will begin to take a toll.

The recent evidence, though, is that teams going to Boulder have not had much trouble at all with altitude. Over the long haul, Colorado's record at home, while better than most, is not significantly better than most programs of its stature - or at least not dramatically enough to link it to any altitude advantage. And in the past two years Colorado is 5-8 at Folsom Field (including a loss to Division I-AA Montana State last season) and 1-1 in games against Colorado State in nearby Denver.

The Buffaloes did wear down Oklahoma last season, dominating the Sooners in the second half of a game at Boulder on the way to a 27-24 upset win. But didn't West Virginia dominate the same Sooners in the second half of the Fiesta Bowl?

Stewart tells the tale of when he was at Air Force and Lou Holtz brought his Notre Dame team to Colorado Springs. Someone trying to get into Holtz's head delivered oxygen bottles to Notre dame's walk-through before the game and Holtz threw them over the hillside.

Stewart might do the same.

"I do not believe in oxygen. That's a joke,'' Stewart said. "Oxygen's for astronauts. You go over on the sideline and put an oxygen [mask] on, the play's already over. What do you need oxygen for? Now if you had oxygen while you were playing maybe that would help you. I don't know. I've never been to NASA and experimented with it. But I don't think in my lifetime we'll have football masks with oxygen in them.''

West Virginia will go to Colorado a day early, leaving Tuesday instead of the normal one day before a road game. Part of that might have something to do with acclimating the players to thinner air, but much of it is simply the length of the trip.

"It doesn't matter if we go that day, two weeks early,'' Stewart said. "I'll start to talk to our team about it [Tuesday]. All you have to do is bust it for six seconds and you have 35 seconds to rest.''

Briefly

Stewart said it was the first he'd heard of any of it because he and the team were already off the field. "There are some good guys in the business,'' Stewart said. "Skip Holtz is one of them.''

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