West Virginia set for first scrimmage of fall camp
West Virginia will hold their first scrimmage of fall camp today, and head coach Rich Rodriguez has goals for what he wants to accomplish.
The goal is to have around 100 plays in the scrimmage and it will be the first time that the Mountaineers will be practicing inside Milan Puskar Stadium.
“I think it’s different when you play. We have a beautiful stadium and I think it creates a little bit of an atmosphere. I hope it does anyways,” Rodriguez said.
The plan will be for Rodriguez to create various scenarios from a field position perspective, whether that is backing up the offense or placing them in the gold or red zone. The down and distance will typically take care of itself, but the goal will be to intermix the groups on both sides of the ball.
“Switch it up. We do that in practice with substitution. Not as fast as a hockey shift because you can’t do it mid-play but pretty close to it,” he said.
The goal is to not only get more evaluations of the players competing at various spots but to keep those on the roster as well as the coaching staff aware and active participants at all times.
“I don’t want any spectators in the program on the field,” Rodriguez said.
Still, Rodriguez isn’t panicking and has time on his side when it comes to sorting out his potential options that he believes he can win with on the field. That process usually isn’t sorted down until around two weeks before the first game where the coaches sort through options.
But even then, Rodriguez said there are players that can emerge all the way up until kickoff.
“There will be several guys up until 1:59 that we’re not sure is going to be starting, which is a good thing if they’re both good enough to win with,” Rodriguez said. “They’ll both play.”
And overall, Rodriguez believes that the team is about where he thought they would be, which means they still have a ways to go.
“We’ve got to play a lot of football Saturday coming up because we have to get more evaluations done. But I’m not panicking,” he said.
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