West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez addressed the media following the third practice of fall camp and this is a summary of what was said.
–Rodriguez felt that his team did better today with the first day in shells. The physicality part is part of it and you have to learn how to practice. You can be physical and smart at the same time. You can learn to thud and some of the guys were confused early in practice and they had to teach that part. Most of the practices in August will be thud. On offense too, they do a lot of perimeter stuff and they need to be good perimeter blockers. We demand a lot out of them from a downfield perimeter blocking stand point.
–Rodriguez liked the effort blocking but didn’t think the technique was good. Rodriguez has had really good downfield blocking and that’s been a big part of the success running the ball over the years.
–Rodriguez scripts an hour and 45 minute practices and the players determine whether that is longer or shorter. He doesn’t want to stand around and doesn’t want to see a bunch of players huddle so practice is constantly moving. As many coaches and managers as they have you should be organized and be able to go from drill to drill and station to station.
–Rodriguez said they put a lot on their quarterbacks and there isn’t really a mental break for a quarterback on any play. There are so many decisions to make and they are so involved in every play so there’s a lot on there. He said that’s the toughest position because there is so much that the quarterbacks are involved in. The effort was pretty good and that’s the part they’ve stressed.
–It’s all new on the offensive line and there are no returning starters. All of them are really playing for the first time but it’s a very conscientious group and they had three really good offensive line coaches working with them. Rodriguez felt that they’ve been sharp mentally although they didn’t get as much push today. There’s a whole lot more on defense than what the offense has seen up front than you would normally expect because of what Zac Alley puts into the game plan even this early.
–West Virginia is doing shorter drives and today’s weather was pretty mild so they haven’t really been able to test the conditioning. They got the GPS trackers and they have all the science on it.
–West Virginia will work really hard on punching the ball out and trying to create turnovers once they go full pads. The thing they’re carrying is not a football, they’re carrying the program so would you leave the program in somebody else’s hands or laying around?
–Rodriguez looks at things in totality so he doesn’t have one position group that stands out. There are so many new guys and a whole new system so three practices in he was hoping they’d get a better idea where the depth chart is shaping up but maybe it’s a good thing that it hasn’t happened. There aren’t a lot of guys separating themselves yet but perhaps that’s a good thing. He wants to break the record with playing players as long as the players are good enough to win with.
–Rodriguez is excited about the special teams units and people know that they can make an impact on special teams with all the competition elsewhere on the roster. Preston Fox, Rodney Gallagher, Oran Singleton and Jarrod Bowie were returning punts and all seemed to be catching the ball well. But they haven’t stressed that yet and will start doing that when pads are on with three special teams units a day.
–The quarterback really has to see the field. He can recognize the coverage and you want your quarterbacks to have fast clear vision before the snap and after the snap. Some guys can outrun a bad decision, but there’s a lot on their plate. They have a lot of guys helping to coach them and he is excited about that group this year and next year and every year in the future.
–Part of the process is they don’t want the quarterback to check and slow the tempo so there is a lot built into it in order to allow that. If you don’t do the read stuff at game speed, you don’t really know if they can make that decision at game speed. That’s why you have to do things as close to game speed as possible so you know that they have it.
–With NIL for recruits you have to project it the best you can and this will be the toughest year for that. But they do have an idea that you have to have a salary cap structure.
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