The job of a cornerback continues to get more difficult.
And it might be the most challenging of all the positions on the football field for a young player according to head coach Rich Rodriguez.
“Not from a mental standpoint as much as a physical standpoint. It’s a hard position if you’re not solid there like three-deep solid or two-deep with at least three that can go, you’ll be exposed,” he said.
The reasoning is easy in the sense that while it may cost a team 10 yards if certain positions make a mistake, a cornerback having one can often result in six points for the other team. That means there is a whole different level of discipline that the players at that spot have to play with on each snap.
Then you throw into the mix that cornerbacks not only have to deal with opposing wide receivers but quarterbacks at the college level that can not only throw the football but effectively throw it deep.
“You’re going to be under constant pressure and the best ones have a certain confidence,” he said.
West Virginia placed a priority on finding help at the cornerback spot this off-season with several transfer additions on top of the young players on the roster. Rodriguez likes the progression of the group thus far but understands that he won’t have a good idea until they’re challenged more.
“We have to put them under some pressure now so we know what we have in the fall,” he said.
Given the nature of the game and the space that needs to be covered both vertically and horizontally, the cornerback spot is forced into playing a number of different man coverages. As a general rule of thumb, most coverages at some point, if you get certain routes, are going to turn to man-to-man.
So that forces players there to be comfortable with it. It’s a good starting point to demonstrate the ability to handle that and then build different zone concepts into it from there.
“Any cornerback coach in today’s game you better be pretty comfortable with playing and teaching some forms of man coverage,” position coach Rod West said.
The first-year West Virginia cornerbacks coach understands that he has to get all 10 players in the room to be the best versions of themselves and that means approaching all kinds of different personalities.
That makes figuring out what gets them going critical, especially at a position that features high stakes and plenty of challenges across the board.
“I've got to explain to them every detail of why to get them to play the best. Some kids need that little extra motivation to push. So for me, the only way I can tell that outside of doing it on the field is meeting with them,” West said.
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