Rich Rodriguez used his latest coaches show to cover a lot of ground, and the biggest news came on the injury front: starting lineman Amare Grayson will miss the rest of the regular season.
Rodriguez said Grayson is set for “a tight rope procedure, that’s what they call it...” and added, “He has a chance for a bowl game if we make it, but he’ll be out for the last three games.”
He also cleared up the status of Jacob Bradford, who missed the trip with the flu. “Jacob Bradford didn’t make the trip... He had the Flu, but he’s healthy now.”
The show opened with Rodriguez looking back at the Texas Tech loss, a game he said had both promising stretches and frustrating breakdowns. “We knew it was going to be a hard game, they have some talented players.
I thought our guys competed. Offensively, couldn’t ask for much better in the first half.
And defensively, you couldn’t ask for much worse. It was some of the same things that have happened all year.
We came out of halftime playing pretty good, then the fourth quarter was weird. We played better defensively, offensively we had two possessions.
One we punted on fourth and one, the other we just kinda messed up. They’re [Texas Tech] too good of a team to beat without being on the mark all the time.
Disappointed we couldn’t make it happen. Nobody’s happy with the outcome.
But there’s also some things I’m proud of... The way our guys came into that environment and competed and gave us a chance to win up until the last possession.”
One of the defensive issues that kept coming up was the deep ball. Rodriguez didn’t hide his frustration there.
“The deep balls are very frustrating... The deep balls, they throw it up and it’s either caught or a pass interference.
We gotta play the deep ball better. We’re in position better, but we’re not making a play.
We gotta work on that more in practice.”
He also addressed the team’s mindset after the loss, saying he spoke bluntly in a team meeting. “We had a team meeting and I was brutally honest and kind of vented more than normal.
There’s more sense of entitlement then there’s ever been. For a lot of young people, it’s never their fault.
There’s always a reason why they can’t do something. I don’t want entitlement, I want earned success.
Let’s play for West Virginia and each other first. Then play for yourself second.”
There was some good news in the passing game, too, with Taron Francis turning in a breakout performance. Rodriguez said, “I didn’t realize he didn’t have a catch coming in.
The way we practice, the 1s and 2s take the same amount of reps. That was good, he broke out a little bit.
He made some plays. He’s going to continue to grow.
You can see it with him and Keon Hutchins, they’re both getting better and better.”
Looking ahead to Kansas, Rodriguez pointed to athleticism as the first thing that jumps off the tape. “Athleticism.
They’re really athletic, especially on defense. Really impressed with that.
They’ve had several games lost in the last second. They’ll be ready to play, they’re well coached.
They have an even front defense with a lot of zone coverages early with man coverage on third down. They beat us pretty good last year and they got some of those players back, and of course the same staff.”
He finished by touching on the broader coaching climate across college football, where assistants are being let go in the middle of the season more often. Rodriguez said, “We have to simplify things because there’s so much [roster] turnover.
We have to adapt. That’s a process that a lot of coaches are going through.
If you look across college football, there’s a lot more coaches, assistants and coordinators getting fired before the season’s even over. That’s not because that coach isn’t working hard...
It might be because he’s doing too much from a schematic standpoint.”
In Other News...
West Virginia Has A Bigger Problem Than The Texas Tech Loss
The Texas Tech loss stung because it looked like the kind of game West Virginia needed to seize if it wanted to build real momentum, but the bigger concern still sits on the other side of the ball. The offense has taken a step forward from last season, enough to suggest there is something to work with, yet the defense remains the teams glaring problem and, by every measure, the worst in college football.
So even as the Mountaineers sort through the fallout from a missed chance, there is a more pressing roster conversation happening behind the scenes. West Virginia is in ongoing contract discussions with Mike Hawkins while also trying to keep Maliek Hawkins moving in the right direction, and the staff is still looking for help through the transfer portal. The loss matters, but the larger job is fixing a defense that has left the program with too much to clean up. [Read more 🡒]
West Virginia Has One Game Left To Settle Its Bowl Fate
West Virginia has one more chance to settle its postseason picture, and the stakes are simple enough: beat Kansas and reach six wins, the threshold that would make the Mountaineers bowl-eligible. At five wins, there is still plenty left to sort out, but the path is clear enough for a team that has spent the season with its bowl fate hanging in the balance.
Until that result is in, the projection game will keep spinning. Different outlets have floated a range of possible destinations for West Virginia, with potential matchups against teams such as Auburn, Army and Arizona State among the possibilities. For now, though, all of that remains secondary to the final regular-season test, because the next game will determine whether those bowl scenarios become real or just remain speculation. [Read more 🡒]
West Virginia Suddenly Has A Real Playoff Path If One Thing Changes
The College Football Playoff is getting a major overhaul in 2027, expanding from 12 teams to 24 and changing the way the field is built. Under the new setup, conference champions from the major leagues will be in the mix along with the highest-ranked teams chosen by the CFP Selection Committee, which gives programs like West Virginia a clearer, if still difficult, route into the national picture.
For the Mountaineers, the update only matters if they can keep building toward the kind of roster that can actually cash in on it. That means holding onto a top dual-threat quarterback and tightening up a defense that still needs work, because the new format may widen the door, but it will not carry a team through it on its own. [Read more 🡒]