Rich Rodriguez press conference summary: post Texas Tech
West Virginia head Rich Rodriguez addressed the media following the match up with Texas Tech and WVSports.com provides a summary of what was said.
–Rodriguez said that he’s done this a long time and he knows when it’s a challenge but thought they would respond better. Didn’t play well in any phase or coach well. It’s disappointing they didn’t get anything going in the run game. He knows the problems and knows how to fix the problems. That process will be tough. He does appreciate the seniors and they gave their best effort but they didn’t get to go out the way they wanted to go out. He’s going to evaluate everything and he’s going to fix the problems. Some will be able to be addressed quickly and some will take time.
–The fake punt worked for them and got them a first down.
–The transactional nature of college sports sometimes it’s easier to get problems and sometimes it’s easier to fix. They don’t want to try to get a bunch of portal guys and fix it with that. He’s really excited about his recruiting class and they’ll sign 40 high school junior college guys next week and get a dozen out of the transfer portal. He will fix some other issues and nobody likes this. This is not good but it isn’t going to stay like this forever. Some of the problems will be harder to fix but they will get it done.
–Rodriguez said they will look at every game and every practice. It’s not whether it’s the right fit but sometimes defensively they had some guys in position with contested balls and they won them all. Times offensively the guy is blocking the right guy and he just got the best of them. Frankly, they need to recruit at a high level. Recruiting now is more than selling your school and program, now it involves the rev share portion and they will be in better shape.
–Scotty Fox is a great competitor and he probably felt a little rushed with his throws. They didn’t do too much drop back because they couldn’t hold up. They have to get bigger, faster, stronger and more athletic but now they have to coach them up. It’s glaringly showed up that they need to do that. He is going to evaluate everything and there’s some good stuff in there that they can take and some stuff they can’t ever do again from a playing evaluation standpoint they can get better at. The first year is always the hardest but it shouldn’t be this hard. Even if they had stayed healthy they would have had some struggles. He gets paid pretty good to build a good football program and he knows what he’s doing even though he might not look like it.
—Jeff Weimer competes. You wish you had him back but he made the most of his opportunities and whatever he is going to do he is going to be successful because of his mental makeup.
–Personnel is a part of fixing it and there are spots they need to get better at. Evaluate everything they’re doing schematically, weight room wise, nutrition wise. He’s not one of those guys that they’ve had success doing it a certain way and they’ll do it that way no matter what. If there is a better way to do it, they will research it and do it. Are they doing everything the best they possibly can? He’s not going to sit there and say this is acceptable so how do they get better? The fans, university and program deserve it.
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