West Virginia defensive coordinator Zac Alley has always been a firm believer in the importance of practice when it comes to the development of a football team.
“You don’t get to game day and suddenly everything’s better and it’s different than what practice is. Practice is a representation of the game and the guys that make plays in practice make plays in the game,” he said.
One of the biggest challenges that the coaching staff placed on the players this past spring was to simply see which ones would play hard and physically over the course of the 15 opportunities. That sounds easy enough, but that toughness and mindset is critical to play for Rich Rodriguez.
Some of that was good and some of it still needs improvement, which is something that the Mountaineers will continue to address throughout the summer.
“We’ll fix that from the film and continue to get better from it,” he said.
The Mountaineers also focus on forcing turnovers in practice in order to get the right mindset. The standard is forcing three turnovers a day in practice and the defense only didn’t hit that mark twice all spring including in the Gold-Blue Showcase.
“We drill it, we talk about it, we emphasize it, and that's kind of how you can get it done every day. But the guys are going to go as you go as a coach. So the more we emphasize it, the better it will be,” Alley said.
One thing that benefits the coaching staff is that with changes to the rules the Mountaineers will now be able to work with the players in some off-season training activities.
That is where the coaching staff hopes to make some more significant strides leading into fall camp where West Virginia will be able to put the finishing touches on the roster.
“That obviously really helps being able to be out there and coach guys up and make sure that they’re doing what we need them to do and to prepare for the season,” he said.
Things have certainly improved but there’s still work that can be done.
“It’s better, certainly, than when we started but we’re not where we need to be yet,” he 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
