Rich Rodriguez looks to create environment by being different
In today’s transactional game of college football, Rich Rodriguez believes that you must have a constant in order to sustain success. That is the environment that he creates around his program.
But it’s also critical to him that West Virginia be an outlier compared to other schools in order to give the Mountaineers football program the best chance for success.
That starts with the way that Rodriguez will practice.
The Mountaineers typically will go around an hour and 45 minutes in practice, but it’s non-stop.
“We’ll do more in an hour and 45 minutes than most teams do in three with how we structure things,” Rodriguez told the 365 Sports Podcast.
And because of that pace, Rodriguez places a strong emphasis on the next play with it being the most important thing and letting the previous ones go by the wayside.
“I tell guys if I’m mad I’m going to yell at you but it won’t be long because we’re running the next play. Everything is non-stop motion,” he said.
As a coach Rodriguez focuses on what his team can execute instead of trying to out-smart the opposition and building what he calls around that from the ground up. There are of course non-negotiables especially when it comes to his offense but the purpose is to have his team prepared to operate instead of teaching and thinking.
On top of the structure of the practices, Rodriguez also has shifted his mindset on when they will be held. Earlier in his career, Rodriguez would schedule workouts at 6:30 a.m. but realized that all it accomplished was making his players tired.
“So we’re not doing anything before 8 a.m. I want our guys to be able to sleep in,” he said.
West Virginia also will hold shorter team meetings with only around 40-minutes dedicated to those and also Rodriguez doesn’t bring in many outside speakers despite recognizing the many great options out there available in that category.
“I’m not going to bring them in if I’m going to spend money on a speaker, I’m going to spend money on my players. I’m going to buy them extra gear,” he said.
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