West Virginia set to enter critical fall camp
With over 70 new players on the roster, there’s going to be a little bit of mystery for head coach Rich Rodriguez entering his first fall camp back at West Virginia.
Some of those questions were answered in the spring and summer, but there have been more pieces added to the roster since the final seconds of the Gold Blue Showcase ticked away.
That makes August a critical month for Rodriguez and his coaching staff in their first year to determine exactly what he has on the field. Predictions and projections for this team have been all over the place, which makes it even more interesting regarding how things could unfold.
The challenge for Rodriguez will be to use fall camp to determine not only key position battles such as at quarterback, wide receiver, the offensive line and various spots on defense but to determine if this is a team that he can win with this fall.
That seems obvious, considering Rodriguez and his coaching staff evaluated and recruited the bulk of the current roster after arriving on campus in December but there’s an art form to it.
Especially with an entirely new system and coaching staff in place in the first year atop the program.
“There’s a lot of things to figure out,” he said.
The good news is this isn’t Rodriguez’s first rodeo as a head coach or even at West Virginia and while the transfer portal certainly has its pitfalls, it has allowed for coaches to rebuild rosters in short order. The Mountaineers certainly got older in a hurry by bringing in over 50 new transfers to the roster in order to give the football program a chance to compete in year one.
Ultimately, the story of this team is going to be written once the ball is kicked off this fall and the 12-game schedule plays out for all to see but the team building and determining of key questions will begin to unfold long before then.
That includes the progress being made on cementing the culture within the program and making things about the team instead of the individual.
All fall camps are critical for any football team but that’s especially true this year for a West Virginia football team that has plenty of questions to answer.
“August is an important month,” Rodriguez said, and it will be critical for him and his staff to start shaping what this team can become. “I think I know what I have, but until we go through August camp, I won’t know for sure. But we got enough talent.”
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