West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez addressed the media following the tenth practice of spring football. WVSports.com provides a summary of what was said.
--Some good and some bad today. A lot of evaluations still ongoing.
--Rodriguez said he did more evaluation of the recruit list for the 2026 prospects and then did some current evaluation of the team over spring break. It's not going to be fun to have to reduce the roster down. Rodriguez again says he doesn't want to cut guys and they should be able to grandfather players into it.
--They're going to sort the roster down and they want to have more guys go both ways in order to deal with the upcoming roster limitations.
--Every coach is in favor of a single portal period to have an idea what the roster will be. But now, it's kind of a cluster and you hope you don't lose too many of the guys that you want to lose. He doesn't expect any because they've been very engaged, but you never know. The guys are going to be in a good spot.
--Rodriguez said he wants players who love football because they love it and not just playing for the money. West Virginia has a tremendous fan base, a great atmosphere and they get great media coverage. They have great opportunities and he is trying to appeal to his team more of the competitiveness as a player.
--Rodriguez said he would say that he hopes the 106th player stays in school at West Virginia and if somebody gets hurt they're the first one in but who is going to do that? The players need to show the best version of them and they can cut scholarship players as well and send them somewhere else.
--College football is trending toward a pro model but they don't have the structures that they have right now. They need to copy them as much as they can.
--Where it's trending is that everybody is going to be under contract. He doesn't know how they have guys getting paid but not under contract. They're all on one year deals and he believes that saner minds will say this is crazy and they need to model it like the NFL.
--Rodriguez said he wants guys that will help them win. Every decision they make is does it help them win? Some of that is added to commitment and durability just beyond talent. They look at guys functional intelligence and football IQ as well. All of that gets evaluated and now they will be more intentional on who they got into the season with.
--Jahiem White was in a green shirt but didn't do any team. He is a proven guy and they know his ability they just haven't given him many reps in the system.
--Rodriguez said he has over the last year talked to NFL GMs about the ever-changing climate. He expects one portal window eventually. It makes too much sense not to follow the most successful professional sports organization.
--Rodriguez doesn't know what everybody else has but they have some advantages and get a great amount of attention. It's a great place to play. If a guy is picking just about money then West Virginia probably isn't recruiting him.
--Logan Bradley was at Ole Miss before I got there. And they spoke highly of him in recruiting.
--You identified guys and show them the facility in recruiting. It's more challenging now. Rodriguez doesn't want guys to leave because the culture or the atmosphere is better. But they can compete with all of those things in college football.
--They've still got to look for some more speed there, so they might use the portal.
--The tempo is different so all of the positions have a challenge to learn a lot of new things. They only have a couple guys that have started games so there is a whole roster of dudes that are learning techniques and fundamentals.
--They're going to try to put more competitive situations in their practices.
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