West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez addressed the media following the eighth practice of spring football. WVSports.com provides a summary of what was said.
--Practiced today and will practice tomorrow and then head out to break.
--The offensive line is a work in progress. They are giving great effort but he needs to remember that not many of them have played. They do some tempo stuff and some of the run scheme stuff so it's not all that different. But the pace and terminology is different so that's one of the points they need to remember.
--The new transfer linemen are pretty athletic but they haven't really played much either. It's still an area of concern because there isn't much experience.
--The players are likely happy to have a break. It will help him but they need some pause for coaches and half way through the coaches can look at what they need to accomplish and what they really need to get done.
--The first spring has been ugly every single time at all of his stops. Today was one of those days where he was like "are you kidding me?"
--Eddie Vesterinen has experience and some others up front but they're progress is coming pretty good. You can't have too many defensive linemen or pass rushers.
--There are less available but a handful they need to try to get.
--They need more to get depth at almost every spot outside quarterback with getting guys out of the transfer portal in the second window.
--Braden Siders has had a good camp. Jimmori Robinson has been a little limited but they've seen flashes from him. Oxley and Keenan Eck will be here in the the summer. You have to have guys that can rush the quarterback.
--Jeff Casteel is a good football coach. He has been there and seen it and done it. He has seen about anything and everything. It's great to have him back.
--Everybody has their role and Casteel is not an ego guy. He is just a really good ball coach and Rodriguez thinks that he is a great person, too.
--Rodriguez said he has been talking to Casteel for a couple years and he brought him down to Jacksonville State as a consultant. When he got here he asked if he wanted to really retire and he decided to come and coach.
--Rodriguez said that after the summer is over and in the first two weeks of fall camp a team is able to become what they can do. He doesn't expect the roster to be settled until fall camp and won't really know who's on it until mid-summer.
--Rodriguez said that because everything is new to all of the players it's hard for them to emerge as leaders. He wants leadership that teaches and you like to have one at every position. Eventually they'll get to the position where one guy can help all the others at all the positions and it takes some time.
--The lack of situational awareness is a dilemma in football everywhere. You should be aware of the situations, down and distance, play clock and more so they try to over emphasize that in practice. That's part of his job to make sure everybody knows that and it isn't anywhere close to where it needs to be.
--Rodriguez said that the roots of Casteel and his relationships is when they went against each other in the Mountain East at Glenville and Shepherd. Those Shepherd teams were really well coached and really physical and they were the hardest teams to go against because they were well coached.
--Rodriguez said if you can be good different it's good, but just being different doesn't make it good. Teams won't see it every week but he's not being different for the sake of being different that's just what he knows. But they're going to continue to evolve.
--You have to stay involved of studying what you do and what everybody else is doing. He works his schedule around the X's and O's part so he can be around it.
--Rodriguez said there's some good things that you can learn from analytics, but it doesn't really take into personnel so it's usually a feel. He will always go for it 100-percent of the time inside the 40 on fourth and short.
--On the Sugar Bowl fake punt, they got a spread look to get it early in the game. Then he was supposed to get noticed if they got the look again but then when he got on the mic nobody was there and he made the call anyways.
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