Rich Rodriguez press conference summary: Utah week
West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez addressed the media at his weekly press conference ahead of the Utah game and here is a summary of what was said.
–Rodriguez said he typically doesn’t start off with injury news but it’s compiling. Tye Edwards wasn’t able to go last week and is still questionable for this week. Cyncir Bowers got a concussion and is questionable for sure. Landen Livingston got hurt in the game and is questionable. Kimo Makane’ole and Ty’kieast Crawford are questionable, maybe probable.
—Nicco Marchiol came to see them with some foot pain and they have a foot specialist out in Colorado and he’s out there today getting that checked out. He is going to be questionable as well. They are hoping that Jacob Barrick can come back and Preston Fox.
–Diore Hubbard and Tyler Jacklich are going to get a lot of reps. Clay Ash is going to get more reps at running back. Rodriguez said one year he had a bunch of injuries at Arizona but it gets some opportunities for some other guys. They have to get some reps for the other running backs this week.
–Devon Dampier is an athletic player. The defense is a big, physical that can get after you.
–All four of the quarterbacks will be getting reps this week. The fourth and fifth guys weren’t getting many reps before, but they were getting some. They don’t know how long Nicco Marchiol is going to be out but for the other four it’s an opportunity for them. Rodriguez has a medical injury report from their trainer and he and the doctors tell them the status. He never would get involved they’re either good to go or not.
–If they’ve been in the offense a few years, missing a few practices isn’t as big of a deal mentally. But everybody being a rookie it’s like they’re freshmen.
–All the quarterbacks can make all the throws it’s about seeing it and throwing it to the right guy at the right time. It’s not as easy as just saying they’re not doing well running, let’s throw it you have to be able to do all the stuff and that’s on the coaches to have the guys ready to do that.
–Nobody is going to take losses harder than the staff. You learn from wins and losses, but you learn from losses more because it stings. Some of the issues they can fix and they need to do it in a hurry. They’re four games into their first year but there is a lot they’ve learned in the last four weeks that they know what they need to do moving forward.
–Rodriguez said they’re not beating them up in practice and didn’t in camp it’s just bad luck. You build your roster hoping you don’t have to have injuries but it’s going to happen.
–Carson Lee did OK when he was in there. It’s not long term with Landen Livingston and he will fight back and is a tough guy.
–If Rodriguez thought there were two guys close to playing on the offensive line they would have been rotating them out. There will be more opportunities for guys to come in and play more reps. Today and tomorrow’s practice will be key to show what they can do. Throwing them in against Utah won’t be ideal but it is what it is.
–It’s good to have Jimmori Robinson out there.
–The third and longs are really hard but when you do have a touchdown opportunity with it all matched up right you have to be able to execute. When you’re struggling like they are at times, when those opportunities come up you better be able to hit those because those aren’t as common as they need to be.
–Rodriguez said you can throw it better but you have to be able to run it more when you’re playing with ten. When the quarterback doesn’t have a great day rushing it’s not always on the quarterback. The quarterback being involved in the run game. He’s not panicking it’s only been four games. There’s a lot of things to mix right now and they got to fix that as a staff too.
–Rodriguez said that Marchiol came to see him on Sunday. He had gone down to the training room before but that was the first he had known.
–Shawn Clark was a great guy and a West Virginia guy. He was the first person after they won the Conference USA title to text him “coach, it’s hard to win, congrats.” He’s heart broken for his family and his friends and it’s really sad.
–The one offense and two offense runs the same amount of plays. Some of the younger ones on the scout team it takes more than a week to get them ready. They have a couple young offensive linemen that they think physically can do the job. Some of these guys will get thrown into an opportunity.
–Rodriguez said it shouldn’t take as long to build a championship roster compared to his first stint. He wants to see the second team where you almost don’t notice a difference from the first team.
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