17 years will have passed between the last time Rich Rodriguez roamed the WVU sidelines and this fall. During that time, Rodriguez has learned about himself both as a person and as a coach.
Rodriguez will make his return to the Mountaineer sideline this fall and with that will come many lessons he's learned since the last time he stepped foot on that sideline as WVU's head coach back in 2007.
"I don’t know if I’m as different as maybe I think I am more advanced and better, more aware of certain issues. Because back then, I had some head coaching experience at the small school level, but it was my first big school head coaching job. Now I have 15 years of head coaching experience at bigger schools or whatever it is since then," Rodriguez said.
Some of the ways he's grown as a person include learning about what he's good at and not so good at.
"I think I’m still too impatient, I’ve never had much patience, and I don’t think that’s ever changed. I’m still overly obsessed with every practice and every rep, and every practice like I’ve been, so from that standpoint, I hadn’t gotten better at," Rodriguez said.
In terms of on the field, Rodriguez said he's trying to evolve as a playcaller, looking at what other teams are doing and seeing where that might fit for his group.
"I also think from a scheme standpoint and all that, I’ve had enough years, and every day I look at what people are doing. Not that I’m going to change our playbooks, but 'boy, that’s pretty neat; how can we fit it in our program,'" Rodriguez said.
One thing that has been a constant for Rodriguez is how he's viewed by his players. Rodriguez takes pride in the relationships with his players, both past and present. Even now at WVU, there are multiple former players of his on staff with the Mountaineers.
"I think I’ve always had a great relationship with my players because the culture and the program have been where one, they know they’re going to work hard, but two, they’re also going to be taken care of, and they care about something bigger than themselves. That’s always been the culture and that’s the culture we have now," Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said as times have changed, so have the ways he's approached his players in terms of creating those relationships, however, the desire to coach guys hard and make them better is still there.
"From that standpoint, I’m kind of the same in our demands. But from a standpoint of how you approach every individual, how you coach every individual, and all that, you’ve had to alter a little bit. Again, we still coach our guys, I think good players want to be coached and they want us to make them better. So, we still do that," Rodriguez said.
----------
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @wesleyshoe
