West Virginia isn’t where head coach Rich Rodriguez wants his team to be with the closure of spring but that isn’t to be unexpected either.
Given the roster turnover and a new coaching staff in place, Rodriguez felt that his team put together a solid spring although every coach in the country would tell you that their teams didn’t get as much done as they would have liked over the 15 practices.
“But I thought the guys got better. Fundamentally we got a little better. Understanding the schemes, terminology that’s all new. Think they got better at that,” he said.
Still, Rodriguez wasn’t pleased with some of the penalties that cropped up on the Gold-Blue Showcase, especially procedural issues on either side of the ball.
“We take great pride in not having self-made mistakes. We’ll get that fixed but I think the guys did what we asked them to do,” he said.
There are non-negotiables for Rodriguez such as tempo and attitude although the latter isn’t something that the Mountaineers got too much into during the course of the almost 90-play scrimmage that was open to the public. And while not every player participated for varying reasons and some were limited, the scrimmage did allow many of the younger players to rep in that setting.
The scrimmage was structured more as a true game with no scoring being kept and instead just getting quality reps with many different groupings of players on the roster.
That included the quarterback spot where both Nicco Marchiol and Jaylen Henderson donned black tag jerseys while the other signal callers on the roster were fully live.
Rodriguez was able to do many of the things that he wanted his team to accomplish during the open scrimmage outside of the two-minute situations at the end but because of the play count he elected to end the showcase instead of pushing it out any further.
“There’s a lot that we didn’t do and a lot more we’ve got to be able to do moving forward,” he said.
Still, while there were some things that stood out and others that didn’t during the event the head coach stressed the importance of not putting too much weight into what unfolded.
“I wouldn’t take a whole lot into anything that happened today whether good or bad,” Rodriguez said.
The head coach will place an emphasis on players doing the right techniques, blocking the right way and running the right routes regardless of what the other players across from them are doing.
Rodriguez admitted that he isn’t sure if his team is on target for where he’d like them to be at this stage but they certainly are further along than they were when practice began. That isn’t unheard of especially given the fact that the first spring under Rodriguez has traditionally been ugly and sometimes even catastrophic. But the good news is time is still on their side and the Mountaineers will have the summer and fall camp to continue to improve.
But when it comes to individual personnel, Rodriguez kept the status quo.
“When they change the portal date I'll be talking about every guy and every strength and weakness. Right now I'm not saying squat,” Rodriguez said.
Next for the Mountaineers is the second transfer portal window which is a big reason for Rodriguez’s stance on discussing players. That will give the coaching staff a chance to sort out needs and fill out those as well as increase the competition on the roster.
“Got some hard decisions to make but been a fun group to coach,” he said.
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