Rich Rodriguez Radio Show Summary 11-10
West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez held his weekly radio show Monday night and here is a summary of what was said.
–Rodriguez said he took two IVs before the game and it helped with his illness. Everybody on the sideline was happy because he couldn’t yell. Felt better on Sunday with the win and better today.
–Rodriguez said any win is better than any loss but he didn’t feel they played particularly well. They were engaged and no panic and when they had to make a play they did. You could see the players’ confidence start to grow. Now, they have a long road trip and a team that had an open date and plenty of time to get ready for them. Rodriguez said the crowd made a difference in the game.
–Rodriguez again said they should have had 15 sacks and they gave up some deep balls but the beginning of the game the defense was dominant when the offense was struggling. There was a lot of positives to take from it. You see the confidence up front a little bit too and that’s starting to grow. The first position to get blamed is the offensive line if you can’t run the ball and they take it personal but he wants them, too.
—Diore Hubbard wasn’t even on the depth chart the first three games but as fate would have it he was ready for his opportunity because you never know what will happen. He wasn’t even on the travel squad to start the year and he’s a testament to taking advantage of those chances that come. They’ve had to adjust a little bit with the injuries but necessity is the other of invention. Hubbard is getting a chance now and is working really hard to make the most of it.
–On the 69-yard pass to Hubbard they sent the back down the wide side of the field and anytime you get man coverage and the linebacker is on him and he had to get through traffic and it was a great throw by Scotty Fox. He is aware of everything you try to teach him and you have to be careful not to overcoach or analyze it. He knew what was happening through the whole game. On the bad snap, he doesn’t have to take a knee he can throw it away and not lose any yards but right now he did the right thing. You will see him let loose a little bit as he gets more comfortable because he has next level arm talent. Rodriguez said he was ready to play Max Brown and Khalil Wilkins is back but Fox has taken control of it. Quarterbacks have to learn to throw without the laces in this offense and he is good at that. Fox is one of the best he has had at catch and throw and flip his hips.
–Rodriguez has been mad all year about not blocking a punt and they got one. That was almost a seven-pointer but it was huge because it flipped the momentum.
—Christian Hamilton was banged up at the beginning but has some speed. Over the last four or five weeks, he’s gotten healthy and more comfortable. He has a good skill set and they’re trying to roll him in there more. They’ve been playing Cam Vaughn and Jeff Weimer too much.
—Jaden Bray and Jahiem White have both had surgery. They both seem to be doing good too and they’ve been around every day. It’s hard for them to stand and watch and not play but they want to be around their teammates. They should be able to get this year back and be ready in the spring.
–You don’t want to overload Curtis Jones. They don’t have another back over 200-pounds so he will get more reps in practice and they’re going to start looking at that more often for all the players. He wants a fullback, actually two of them. They are actively looking for those and they need one that can play in the short yardage situations. Rodriguez wants to hurt somebody with the fullback. When Owen Schmitt would play he would break his facemask and hurt the opposition. He wants to be the team that others hate to play because they keep throwing football punches. Rodriguez wants to run isolation, sweeps, anything where you hand the ball off and make them tackle you with the fullback. He expects to sign at least one and maybe two in this upcoming recruiting class. They’ve got two of them they have been repping from the defensive line at blocking backs but he isn’t going to give them the ball. He wants to spread teams out to get them tired and then when they’re tired see if you can tackle the guys. You’ll see a different look with that in the spring. They had recruits in this weekend and they had players that could play both ways. You have to think more out of the box anymore with injuries and also to be different. He doesn’t mind being different in a lot of different ways football wise. The physicality with West Virginia football has always been there. And in order for them to win at the biggest level they have to be the most physical team. There are times they’ve done it and times they haven’t but they’ll know they’ve arrived when they do it all the time in every game.
–The tight ends are really athletic but they want to get them up to 240-pounds, 250-pounds but still are able to play in space. It’s their job as coaches to develop their mentality. Ryan Ward is one of those tight ends that has some size to him and he’s slowly gotten better and better.
–Quarterback play has been consistent, they are playing more confident up front with better push. Defensively they have a little more confidence as well. They aren’t play nearly as good as they are going to be. They anticipated some of the struggles, but they didn’t think they’d get that deep into the depth chart. You could sense if they are still into practice and trying to do that when things aren’t going well and there was never any of that. Sometimes you get a little spark and play better. They have two really good teams coming up but he would be disappointed if they didn’t continue to improve.
—Arizona State is really different. They won the league last year and got seven starters back on defense and have done a great job. Kenny Dillingham used to come to Rodriguez’s clinics when he was at Arizona as a high school coach. It’s such a different dynamic in the Big 12. You can flip it quicker if you have some of the infrastructure in place but you’ve got to maintain it. That’s what they want to do here at West Virginia. Jeff Sims has had six seasons at the college level and rushed for 230 yards and threw for 177 yards in his first game filling in for Sam Leavitt. He is very athletic and experienced guy that can make all the throws. Rodriguez thinks they’ll get what they did at Iowa State offensively. They’re fighting for their conference deal and he believes they will run Sims a lot. You have to keep contain on an athletic quarterback and you can’t just rush the passer and leave open lanes. They’ve struggled at times with throws down the field and you have to play the ball better.
—Fred Perry had a knee brace on and it was exposed on his lower leg so you have to have that covered. Rodriguez addressed it at the time and he is going to bring it up with them tomorrow.
–Arizona State is very multiple and is really athletic with pass rushers on the edge. They are playing their best football right now defensively. Rodriguez said they self scout themselves on what they’re doing different but it’s based on what your quarterback does well. They know what Fox can do well now and they want to hone in on that and add some things not to complicate the offense.
–Rodriguez said you better have tendencies or you won’t be any good offensively. Sometimes you can be over creative but sometimes he has a list of base plays and if they do something he’ll have an answer to it. He calls it the answer sheet. Rodriguez said there are so many different categories when you break the film down like formations, down and distance, red zone, tempo, fourth quarter and you watch all of them throughout the course of the week. They look at what opponents did to create explosives, then formations and how they played them. For West Virginia there is a little bit of not sure on how they’ll play them because they’re different so you have to adjust accordingly. When the quarterbacks get really good they can diagnose the film and anticipate what call is going to be made. They do football 101 where they learn the offense and defense, but where the weaknesses are in certain looks and the plays for each.
–When the coaches aren’t around in the locker room the players can set the tone just how they work. How they manage things and approach their craft. Rodriguez thinks you have to try to get to that. You look for that in recruiting. You hope they will step and embrace that role.
–Rodriguez said they had eight or nine official visits in and they’ll have another dozen official visits in for the bye week and they’ll have a bunch more official visits for the final home game. The last couple weeks will be critical for recruiting. Normally, they meet with every facet of the program and the school and on Sunday they met with a couple of them after the game one-on-one and yesterday there was seven or eight of them they had a chance to sit down with. Every game they have recruits there and they soak in everything. That’s the biggest thing of them wanting them to come to games because they believe they have a great atmosphere. He thinks they have the best in the league fan base and it’s important they show up. Rodriguez plans to go on the road for a few days and he said that a lot of guys are playing. You’d rather have an open date earlier but next week will be a chance to go lock some guys in. They also will be evaluating their current roster. Almost every day they’re having discussions on where players currently in the program is at and they’re honest with where the players are. They’re so much more prepared for all of it and it will be much more of a thought out process from roster management and talent acquisition. Somebody could make a ridiculous deal but they’re very confident that the ones that have earned success they can retain. There was supposed to be a rev share cap, but a lot of them are front loading it and paying guys out of NIL money so they’ll have $13 million extra to pay. You can still buy a bigger roster if you have enough NIL money. Rodriguez feels good about finding players and you have to make sure you buy the right ones. They have to be the best in the country at developing all of their players not just high school guys but transfer guys.
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