West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez will take a different approach to installation than his predecessor.
Under Neal Brown, like most in the air raid tree, the focus on installation is put in three days and then repeat those but Rodriguez and his staff will approach things with a different methodology.
“Offensively we’ve got a lot of stuff in and we’re also trying to find out what our guys do well so we’re probably putting too much stuff in because we’re trying to evaluate what routes we run well, what routes we throw well and all that. But we’ve got plenty of stuff on offense already in first day,” he said.
Rodriguez even said that on the defensive side of the ball, coordinator Zac Alley had already installed around 10 different blitzes showcasing the rapid pace that the coaches approach the installation.
A key component to every practice will be geared toward evaluation. The Mountaineers will do drills pitting the offense against the defense because that isn’t permitted outside of practice which will put a focus on one-on-one and two-on-two drills to see where players fit into the general picture.
Like most things, that will only increase once the pads come on Saturday.
Rodriguez and his coaching staff are inheriting almost an entire clean slate when it comes to starting production that was lost from last season which makes those evaluations critical.
“Athletically I think we’re O.K. but there’s still some spots that I think we have to answer through the spring or the next portal period,” Rodriguez said.
The goal of the spring is to teach the players as much as possible when it comes to schemes and techniques, but the evaluation piece will be of the utmost importance.
Rodriguez planned to watch the entire team period with the rest of his coaching staff to help uncover those players that are in the best spots to succeed.
“We have to do a really good job evaluating our guys each and every day and see who the guys are that we think we can win with. I hope we have two guys at every position that are good to win with, I’d like to have three guys, but I don’t know if we’ll have that. We’re going to figure that out by the end of the spring,” he said.
For the first practice of the spring, Rodriguez felt that the intent out of the players was good, and they did work hard. But there were four or five pre-snap penalties that will need to be addressed.
“I’m used to going four or five practices without having one so got to fix that up front with the big guys. We’re still feeling our way with the first practice and getting our timing down,” Rodriguez said. “But I liked our effort back where I was seeing it.”
And just like with the players there are some learning curves with a new coaching staff even with the familiarity across the board. Rodriguez is keen on not having idle time in practice and has made sure that the rest of his staff understands that the most valuable time of the day is the time spent with the players.
“Whether it’s in a meeting or in practice and that time we have with our guys we have to make sure we’re really, really ready for them and they’re not waiting on us. I think we did ok with that, but I think we’ll do a lot better with the next practice,” Rodriguez said.
Another wrinkle thrown into the mix is with the pending House Settlement what occurs if the team is forced to cut down the total roster size to 105 players. That makes the spring essentially as well because Rodriguez admits that it will be tough to cut 20-25 players if those already on the roster aren’t grandfathered into those totals if the Settlement does eventually dictate that roster size.
“That’s going to be a really hard deal because there’s going to be a lot of guys that worked hard enough to earn a spot and we’re just not going to be able to have that. It’s going to make it competitive until that time comes but I hope that’s not the case,” 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
