Rich Rodriguez press conference summary: 8-4
West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez addressed the media in a press conference Monday and WVSports.com provides a summary of what was said.
–Rodriguez felt that they got better today and were competitive. Today is the last day in shells and tomorrow is full pads. They took some steps and there is a lot of healthy competition at a lot of spots.
–Everybody has got a system but you still gear it to what the players do best. Rodriguez said he’s trying to make all of the players do all of their stuff and on defense they do a whole bunch but on offense there is a lot they can do but they’re focused on who they’re going to be. An opposing coach said they ran the same play 28 times in a row last year and he would have ran it 28 more if he could have because he doesn’t worry about variety in play calling just what works.
–They were competitive today. Rodriguez said all of the quarterbacks are running pretty good and in good shape. They’ve got plenty of guys that are able to play. It’s hard to play two quarterback at a time. Rhett Rodriguez has done a good job of managing them but they will be more live in training camp than ever before.
–Rodriguez said that he hasn’t seen many egregious mistakes at quarterback and still feels good about the position. Going live at quarterback will mean fully tackling to the ground. They must be smart about it and won’t do it all the time. You have to teach your guys to be physical in live without being a stupid teammate.
–When they go live you’ll find out more about everybody like who is going to finish a run, sustain a block or tackle to the ground. He is excited about it. You have to play football to get better at football.
–Punt and punt block have been more complicated over the years in terms of special teams. Rodriguez said that they have to make sure that with all the fancy stuff they can do you still want to keep it simple.
–Rodriguez played defense here and started off the first couple years as a coach on defense but when he became the head coach at Glenville he flipped over to the offensive side. Rodriguez is in tune with everything they do on defense. He trusts Zac Alley so he doesn’t have to get in his room, but he does sometimes. He likes being different on defense but you got to be able to coach it and have great players.
–The guy that has the most variety of things to do outside of quarterback is the tight end. They have to block with the strength and power of an offensive lineman and go run routes.
–Rodriguez said he didn’t get any running backs back today but he was asked about the four players awaiting waivers and he’s still waiting. He was asked if he knew that the four filed a lawsuit and he said he didn’t but that was great news.
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