Rich Rodriguez press conference summary 10-14
West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez held his weekly press conference Tuesday afternoon ahead of the UCF game and here is a summary of what was said.
–Rodriguez said they got a chance to work on some fundamentals and get some guys back even though they don’t have as many back as they want to. Now getting ready for the second half of the season.
–The two young quarterbacks are going to take a lot of reps and last week was good to take a lot of reps. Rodriguez said that it isn’t complicated to establish themselves it comes down to running the offense and making good decisions. Also minimizing mistakes when there are bad plays.
–You have to dial back as a coach a little bit with a young quarterback and they have to be aware about how much they put in or add without too much experience.
–Rodriguez wants all the players even the injured ones at practice. He wants them around the team and have them around. He doesn’t want an injured guy not to feel like he’s part of the program and they want hi m there every day.
–Tye Edwards wants to play and it’s been frustrating for him since he’s been injured. They have Diore Hubbard, Cyncir Bowers is back and Tyler Jacklich.
–The roster management is different now than what it was during his first tenure here. You lose a lot more than just the seniors and now you can bring guys in with experience but not necessarily with experience in your scheme. What is similar is that if you have coaches that have been with you they know your offense and defense. From a competitive standpoint it’s 100–percent better you can get healthy in a hurry if you have the right money. By the time you get to year three or four in the past you can grow them. You can get healthy in a hurry now with the right money. Rodriguez said that he wishes he had more patience. It’s why he likes to go fast, he wants to win like yesterday. He could stand up here and preach patience but nobody is more impatient than he is so he is trying to figure out what they can do right now. He is not giving up on this year’s team at all and he likes the way they handled the bye week.
–Rodriguez said they wanted to see if anybody is ready to play right now with the young people. There was one or two of them that could play four games and redshirt. Also were some signs that they weren’t as deep here or as good so the recruiting piece is key. This year they’ve been here long enough to sign a really good high school class. They’ll sign 35 high school guys and 8-10 high impact portal guys. They still got to attack the portal too with glaring needs.
–Rodriguez knows that he will focus more on high school than they did last year. They are still going to take a better transfer portal guy than a high school guy but they can focus more on high school guys than they did a year ago. Then they’re also going to be in a better position from a revenue sharing standpoint. Some schools will spend $30 million or $20 million additionally, they need to have those additional dollars competitive to where the top of the country is going to be. There are challenges to that because they are in a smaller state and they have to be creative to how they add to that.
–UCF is very active and nobody stands still. The offense is the same regardless of who is playing QB.
–Rodriguez was mad after the BYU game. Monday was the next day they met and he was still mad because they missed some opportunities and he challenged the staff and the players are they doing everything they can to have success? Are they doing everything they can to win right now? To their credit, they’re doing that and trying everything they can. The things they can control what are the best thing they can do.
–They will take 8-10 impact transfers but he believes they can go $10 million over the cap they can be competitive in the league. In college football there are few few of them that have that large number.
–Good at the fundamentals, execute hard, can’t have mental mistakes and play hard. Those things that we have to do well as coaches we have to do better. There are times we are OK with that, but there are times they can do things better. They’ve got good enough players to have success and do well but they can’t mess around and win with silly mistakes and bad fundamentals. They can better and that’s the challenge.
–Rodriguez said if you have the resources and buy the right type of players and have a good plan you will be up there. There’s a reason the worst team in the NFL gets the first pick and they have a true salary cap. The league is designed for parity. College football doesn’t have that. That somehow needs to get fixed in collegiate athletics. Rodriguez said they have to do their job to win some of these games.
–You need to have a good quarterback to win games and he believes they have them here and will continue to recruit them. It gives you a chance.
Offer Alert
Fall camp is here and there’s no better time to sign up with us to get all your WVU intel! Sign up today – $1 for the first week, plus a complimentary year of access to The Athletic included. Join – http://gowvu.us/Join
__________________________________________
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan
•Like us on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok
