Rich Rodriguez makes recruiting a daily focus
West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez and his coaching staff meet daily to evaluate and discuss recruiting.
It’s something that the Mountaineers must do in order to be successful on that front and takes a commitment from everybody in the football program.
“We look at guys that are in the portal, maybe in the portal. We look at guys that are coming out of high school, junior college, all that stuff,” he said.
There are around 20 coaches in the room as well as six or seven recruiting personnel positions. And the goal is to use those numbers to kick more tires around and identify more potential talent. There are staff members that are more responsible for the portal and others that are assigned to high school recruiting.
But even with that it’s harder than it used to be because even if you work hard and out recruit somebody for a potential prospect there is the financial factor that can swing things in any situation.
Still, the outlook is a lot different from when Rodriguez initially took over and those positions weren’t in place.
“It’s a different dynamic but you have to work really hard at it. Sometimes you make the wrong choice and if you do that you have to recognize that and fix that problem,” he said.
But now with almost a year under their belt, the Mountaineers are much further ahead in that department.
“And should be and it will reflect in our recruiting class and our portal class as well when that finishes up in January,” he said.
One of the shifts has come in simply recruiting high school prospects as in the past you would focus on the senior class and then go down the line.
Now, while senior evaluations remain critical for identifying new talent, some players are out of the coaches’ price range by the time they are seniors. Or perhaps the coaching staff needs to get older in a hurry at some spots meaning the transfer portal is the solution.
“We’re going to sign a lot more high school guys than transfer guys but we’re still going to sign transfer guys too because we’re going to need some immediate help at some positions,” he said.
And given all of the college jobs that are opening up it provides different avenues for the Mountaineers to aggressively attack those commitment lists of teams that have coaching changes. That makes the stretch run leading into the early signing period at the beginning of December critical.
“That’s why November will be the busiest month for everybody in college football of all the months of the year,” Rodriguez said.
The veteran head coach has challenged his staff members to identify as many potential impact guys as possible and sometimes you think you have it but other times those players emerge. He wants his coaching staff to have a goal to attempt to land at least one all-conference player each class at every position and that way it will put the Mountaineers in the best spot moving forward.
“In order for us or anybody will tell you to win championships you’ve got to have some of those guys that are generational type of talents that are not only physically talented but have the mental makeup and competitiveness that lifts everybody up. And we’re all looking for that,” he said.
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