Rich Rodriguez on loss vs. UCF: ‘I'm hoping this is bottom’

It was another long afternoon for Rich Rodriguez and West Virginia. The Mountaineers fell 45-13 to UCF on Saturday at FBC Mortgage Stadium in Orlando, marking their fourth straight Big 12 loss and fifth consecutive overall.

The defeat dropped West Virginia to 2-5 on the season and 0-4 in conference play, while UCF improved to 4-3 overall and 1-3 in the Big 12. The Knights also earned their first-ever victory over the Mountaineers in the five-game series, dating back to 2003.

UCF quarterback Tayven Jackson powered the offense with 277 passing yards and two touchdowns, both hauled in by Chris Domercant, who finished with 89 receiving yards. On the ground, Jaden Nixon sparked the Knights with 116 yards on just seven carries, helping UCF take control early and never look back.

Rodriguez, visibly frustrated after the game, didn’t mince words when assessing his team’s performance “We stunk in every phase, in every way. I mean, I thought we had a good week of practice. I’ve done this a long time and I thought the guys were ready to play, but we didn’t do anything well,” Rodriguez said.

“We looked slow and out of position. We missed tackles and didn’t block. Hell, we had two holding penalties on draw plays; that should never happen. Again, poorly coached, poorly executed, poorly played and poorly everything. I’m hoping this is bottom. And I know we could say we’re playing young quarterbacks, and we are and there’s growing pains with that, but that doesn’t explain everything.”

Over their last four games, West Virginia has cycled through four different starting quarterbacks, all conference matchups. They’ve lost each by double-digit margins. The offensive inconsistency has made it difficult for the Mountaineers to find rhythm, and Rodriguez acknowledged that the problems go beyond youth or inexperience.

“There are a multitude of things we’ve got to fix, and that falls on us as coaches,” he added. “We’ve got to do everything we can to get fixed what we can fix now.”

Alas, West Virginia will return home next Saturday for its Homecoming matchup against TCU at Milan Puskar Stadium. Kickoff is set for 6 p.m. ET as the Mountaineers are looking to regroup and halt their losing skid. We’ll see if they can do it.