Rich Rodriguez press conference summary: Kansas week
West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez addressed the media ahead of the Big 12 Conference opener with Kansas and WVSports.com provides a summary of what was said.
–Rodriguez said it was a great weekend for the Mountaineers with a big win and a lot of recruits there. A lot of neat comments from those that were here for the first time. Big challenge this week on the road, Kansas has a really talented team and had an open week so two weeks to prepare. After Sunday, the Mountaineers have to turn the page from last week and get ready to play Saturday night.
–Tye Edwards helped the run game and the offensive line played solid. Rodriguez said that Edwards is still getting in shape and the hardest thing for him was that he got a little bit tired and he wasn’t used to that type of workload. Sometimes you forget that even if you’re an older player, it’s a lot on them.
–Rodriguez said they’ve been doing their research on Kansas and they are very similar to what West Virginia does on defense. You will see a lot out of them on every down. With two weeks, they have had time to prepare and they’re going to see some stuff they haven’t seen in a while.
–All the offensive linemen are freshmen in the system. They are truly all freshmen outside of a couple guys that played for them at Jacksonville State so he sometimes have to tell the offensive coaches to dial it back. That’s the hardest part with playing with so many new guys. Year two you’ll have more, year three more and by the time year four many of them will have grown up in the system.
–Rodriguez said that they used a heavy package with eight linemen at Jacksonville State but he thought if you could have eight, why not have nine?
–Every experience his team has is going to help them grow and learn. He’s glad they won and he’d rather learn from a win than a loss but you learn a lot from losses too. It’s a long season and they’re going to have a lot of tough ball games.
–Somebody could go in the tank when they’re pulled out but Nicco Marchiol didn’t do that at all. He stayed engaged and he was really proud how he stayed focused.
–They may continue to look at different stuff with the heavy package.
–Rodriguez has a handful of guys that played at lower levels and adjusted quickly. They make a judgement based on what they see and hope it matches up when they get here. They thought Tye Edwards was going to be a good player but he showed some glimpses of what they thought he could be.
–Grayson Barnes is a hybrid tight end and has great ball skills. He is a tough blocker and they ask a lot out of their tight ends.
–Rodriguez said if you get to 100 snaps you’re having some tempo even with all of the unfortunate injuries they had at multiple times during the game.
–Jimmori Robinson is an athletic guy and has all the skills you want. He has to play in the system.
–Rodriguez thinks the 10-day transfer portal window is an improvement. Shortening it is good and as many rules they can follow from the NFL that’s what they should do. Concentrating that on one window will make it a whole lot better from an organizational standpoint.
–The defense kept them in the game against Pittsburgh against a pretty talented team with a quarterback that can make throws.
–Tight end Jacob Barrick got an ankle injury and concerned there, hoping to get linebacker Chase Wilson back and wide receiver Preston Fox. Not sure on running back Kannon Katzer yet.
–Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels is very athletic and can do a lot of things with his legs. He is so different from Eli Holstein it’s not really an apples to apples comparison.
–Kansas isn’t different offensively than they have been. There will be some stuff in this game that they haven’t done because they’ve had time to do it. They have to have great eye discipline and fundamentals. Lance Leipold kind of came up the same way as Rodriguez through small schools and he’s always been creative in what they do offensively and he’s won. He has won at places that hasn’t always won.
–Rodriguez said they will do some different stuff this week to prepare for what Daniels brings to the table with his legs. They can’t allow that to happen with Daniels for letting him scramble around and make plays with his legs.
–Rodriguez said he will rather bus an hour away and play somebody than getting on a plane but when you do travel everything is a little smaller and it’s easier sometimes to get focused in on the game. There is some more time you have with your players on away trips.
–Today if there’s any hangover from the last game, Rodriguez will notice it in practice and get it corrected as soon as he can. They will practice with the same intensity.
–The whole key on offense is to try to execute as well as you can.
–The first thing to do to be a punt returner or kick returner is being able to catch it. The returners since camp started have caught the ball really well. Rodney Gallagher has great ball skills and they trust him with all of the returns but Preston Fox has been really good too. Trust the guys that can catch it and if they can make somebody miss that’s great.
–The Kansas defensive line is really athletic and they need to be able to handle their interior defensive line because they can move.
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
