Rich Rodriguez press conference summary: 4-15
West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez met with the media following spring practice Wednesday and WVSports.com provides a summary of what was said.
–Practice in shorts today and Saturday will be the last one with a scrimmage and try to have a little fun. They split the team up and this will be a continuation of that. It will be live except the quarterbacks. Scotty Fox is a little banged up with a hamstring. He might have Michael Hawkins in a touch jersey. They are anxious to do that and hopefully they have a lot of fun.
–Number one thing was to teach and develop this spring but close behind was the evaluation piece. That will go through August camp. Rodriguez will tell the players where they are at and Saturday will be another piece. Rodriguez said that there isn’t a position where there are major concerns but there are some thinner and some where they’re deeper than they thought. Some of the players have been a little better and quicker to pick up but some have taken a little longer which is typical.
–Money helps for sure if you have enough dollars to buy a two deep you can overcome injuries.
–Rodriguez thinks they can tell from a competitive standpoint and athletic standpoint and talent standpoint that things are improved. He said they had more money to spend this year than last year, but they still have to get more money in the future. Whatever the rev share number is, it’s not everybody’s cap. Rodriguez said they need to raise some money and help guys get some NIL deals going. Rodriguez wants a player to do well and they love it here and they love playing football so they won’t leave to double the pay.
–Rodriguez said they did field goal and punt and punt block. They introduced kickoff and kickoff return. He wanted to see 11 guys run downs and try to block. Really good competition. The other guys kicked really well today and they have made progress. It will be some open competition.
–Rodriguez doesn’t want to see mental mistakes Saturday but he wants to see a certain level of competitiveness and everybody is playing hard and competing. They are enjoying playing the game Saturday in front of a great crowd. The intensity is what it should be in the scrimmage.
–Rodriguez said he is watching every guy on every down from the scrimmage and will scrutinize every position.
–Rodriguez said they will make an individual cutup for every player that they can go over with the coach on things they did well and things they need to get better. Coaches will want to do that with the players. They will make some cutups of the scrimmages and use it throughout the summer with the players.
–The depth chart is ever flowing and it isn’t set in stone and you have to live in a constant state of competition. If a guy doesn’t love to compete he doesn’t want to be in the building.
—Travis Trickett and Rhett Rodriguez called the plays in the first scrimmage and Saturday will be a mix between them and him. He said that they will go into the stands to do a two-point play again.
–Rodriguez said that they’re deeper and more athletic and competitive at defensive ends. That’s a spot they’ve got to have some depth and some competition.
–Rodriguez said they are moving a lot of guys around up front to create a depth of eight on the offensive line but he thinks they could have a depth chart of 10 of 11. It’s been a goal to have 10 or 11 deep that they feel good about and they’re getting closer to that.
–Rodriguez said they want fans to come here and buy season tickets and have a great time. The scrimmage part of it, they will go more live because they have so many new players. That’s not something he would typically do but because they’re evaluating they’ll be more competitive in the scrimmage Saturday.
–The stage will be on the field Saturday so they will go one way toward the big scoreboard Saturday. That means they won’t be returning kicks or the special teams won’t be live but the scrimmage part should be intense.
—Devin Vass is banged up, Ashton Woods is out, Emory Snyder is rehabbing and they’ve had a few guys banged up but it should be most of the roster playing.
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