West Virginia is only a week into the season, but Rich Rodriguez already sounds like a coach who likes what he’s seeing - especially when it comes to depth, speed and the way his roster has handled a big batch of new faces.
Rodriguez said the Mountaineers’ depth chart decisions are coming from a place of strength, not uncertainty. “I think mostly for us, it’s in a good way.
If you have an OR because you’re not sure either one of them are ready to do that, that makes that not so good. Most of our ORs, probably all of them, are because we feel good about multiple guys at those positions.
I think we’re a deeper team for sure than we were a year ago.”
That depth, in his view, is part of a bigger upgrade in the makeup of the team. He pointed to experience carrying over, skill talent on offense and explosiveness on defense, along with a noticeable bump in team speed on both sides of the ball.
“Yeah. I think there’s guys that have experience, so you think that they’re going to be guys that’s going to carry over.
I think we’ve got exciting skill players on offense. We have some explosive guys on defense.
I think our overall team speed is a little higher on both sides of the ball as well, and I think they’ll play hard. We’ll learn a lot in the first game.”
Still, Rodriguez isn’t treating one game as a final verdict. Asked about what he expects to learn early, he made it clear he wants more than a single Saturday to define the group.
“Ask me that at 4 o’clock on Saturday. But I don’t want to put all of that on one game.
I felt that after camp that this team is coming together pretty good. There were a couple of days I didn’t think we practiced really well, so that makes you nervous again.
Our little dry run, Beanie Bowl that we had Friday, I told the team I couldn’t judge anything, but that’s because it was so scripted; it’s just really hard to play football. Our guys, for the most part, have been very receptive to all the stuff we’ve asked them to do, and we ask them to do a lot.
Most of these guys have been here since January, so we’ve worked a long time together.”
On Coastal Carolina, Rodriguez expects a disciplined opponent that won’t hand out freebies. He said the Chanticleers are sound, organized and tricky to pin down pre-snap.
“They’re going to be very well-coached. They very rarely give up big plays or easy, cheap ones.
They’re going to be in the right spot, and you can tell that by watching their games and their scheme and what they’re doing. They’ve got some really good football players, but you’re not really sure where they’re going to be lined up all the time, so that’s going to be a little bit of a challenge.
And then offensively, they could be a whole lot of new stuff that we hadn’t seen.”
He also praised the way his own group has handled the transition. Rodriguez said the newcomers have bought in without creating problems, which he sees as a major reason the team has kept moving forward.
“These guys have been very coachable. I’ve really enjoyed it.
There hasn’t been drama, which you would expect with, I don’t know how many new guys we got. You’d expect a little bit of drama here and there, but there really hasn’t been, so that’s what has made me feel good that they’re going to keep progressing.”
Rodriguez closed by reflecting on Patrick’s number being retired, calling it a major honor and tying it directly to what he meant to West Virginia. “That’s a great honor.
It’s one of the greatest honors any athlete could ever have at a university - you’ve done so well there that they want to retire your number forever. And not just as an athlete, but what you meant to the program.
Everybody that gets their number retired probably made an indelible impact on that program for decades, and that’s what Patrick did. People are still talking about what he did 20 years ago.
He was always about the team first, and why do I need to do to have West Virginia have success?”
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Reports have pointed to Oklahoma transfer Michael Hawkins Jr. as the likely choice over returning quarterback Scotty Fox Jr., which would give West Virginia a different look at the games most important position. Coastal Carolina is dealing with its own quarterback puzzle under new coach Ryan Beard, with five players in the mix, but for the Mountaineers the wait feels especially significant because Rodriguezs second year is supposed to bring more clarity and progress. [Read more 🡒]
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The schedule will not give the Mountaineers much room to settle in, either, with a demanding non-conference slate waiting before league play fully takes hold. For all the promise around the roster, the biggest questions still sit in the frontcourt picture, where the team is waiting on two important names to sort out their status and help determine just how far this early momentum can really go. [Read more 🡒]