Rich Rodriguez provides update ahead of scrimmage
West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez placed a focus on situations Friday in practice ahead of Saturday’s first scrimmage of fall camp.
The Mountaineers repped two-minute drill, end of game and end of half situations Friday with a focus on special teams. The coaching staff wanted to see situational awareness out of the players.
While down and distance is a focus every day, one thing that the coaching staff drilled was how to handle end of half situations in the red zone and in other areas.
“If we got one timeout when are we going to take it? You know getting of bounds. Things that are pretty common everybody else does,” Rodriguez said.
One position that did receive a boost in practice Friday was at running back as the Mountaineers had four options available after there just being two the day before. One of those returning players was Cyncir Bowers who had been battling injury but is one of the faster guys on offense.
“I like to have three or four running backs to roll in there,” he said.
The goal is to have the running backs equipped to have the mindset to carry the ball 10-times in a row and be in shape. Even a proven player at this level like Jahiem White, Rodriguez hopes that he is phyiscally able to run the ball 25 or 30 times a game if need be given the tempo.
The scrimmage is going to allow the coaching staff to evaluate a lot of football and Rodriguez wants to see effort out of his players while avoiding some of the same mental mistakes as the day before.
And the coaches want to attempt to create a game like environment.
“Let the guys play, correct the moments when we have time to correct them, and then evaluate pretty heavily what they do,” Rodriguez said.
The veteran head coach said that he isn’t looking to redshirt any of the freshmen if they can prove the ability to play at this level because of how much the game has changed.
But all of them are good players and can help.
“Most of them are some of the best players from their high school. But the ones that have great success that are ones that are, you know, really engaged and cognizant of learning, getting better, you know, doing the little extra,” Rodriguez said.
And the competition is expected to continue to rage on with the Mountaineers rolling players in and out with different groups in the scrimmage.
“So I’m looking forward to it cause the last time we scrimmaged was, like full scrimmaged was the spring game. And a lot was held back,” he said.
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