West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez understands that recruiting is a constant.
Whether it’s evaluating players or communication, the role that recruiting plays for a college program is critical and must continue to be addressed daily.But recruiting also has evolved with the rise of the transfer portal and now college coaches must balance all of the different factors when putting a roster together.
“We don’t want to neglect any of them. I don’t want to lose out on a player in any of the categories but I’ve got a big enough staff now we got a whole recruiting staff,” he said.
When it comes to high school recruiting, Rodriguez said that the plan is to circle a three-hour radius around Morgantown in areas such as in-state, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The Mountaineers also plan to recruit both Florida and in the South.
“We have a lot of ties,” he said.
On top of those regions, Rodriguez has also encouraged his assistant coaches to recruit the areas that they know and are comfortable with over their careers.
“I tell them areas they know that there’s players at and they got ties,” he said.
With the transfer portal piece, Rodriguez doesn’t have any sort of formula for how the roster will be made up in regards to splitting the spots between traditional recruiting or transfers. He also doesn’t place any special emphasis on the eligibility that a player has left and instead on what they can do.
“I told the coaches at each position and the recruiting staff, just get the best players you can get. We hope they have more than one year, but if all they have is one year we’ll take them for one year,” he said.
That might not have been a strategy that coaching staffs would have used in the past, but now it’s almost a necessity given the fact that there is so much turnover.
“Just get guys that can play and give them something they can execute,” he said.
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