West Virginia enters difficult stretch for evaluation, decisions

West Virginia will have six remaining practices after the break including the Gold-Blue Showcase with a magnifying glass during that time on evaluation of the current roster.

That is always a critical component, especially in the midst of a coaching change, but considering there are so many new players in the program on top of the upcoming changes to the allowable size of the roster it’s perhaps even more important than usual.

The House Settlement is expected to lower the roster size to 105 players in total which means that the coaching staff is going to have to make some difficult decisions on a number of players.

“I already talked to our coaches and some of our personnel folks that we’ve got to really get a good plan for that because I know it’s a long time until the first week, but that 105, we’ve got to have the best 105 that we could possibly have here,” head coach Rich Rodriguez said.

That means whittling down the roster totals to 105 by the time that fall camp rolls around and it means looking at the roster in totality now in order to see where the program needs the most help.

The end of spring practice was deliberately set April 5 as opposed to the original date a week later in order to allow the coaching staff a week to meet with players before the second portal window is set to open April 16.

That gives players an opportunity to get into the transfer portal yet again, while mapping out the positions that the Mountaineers still need to create the most competitive roster possible.

“We got to be honest with all of them. And I can't keep all of them even if I wanted to because of the roster size. That's going to be the hardest part,” Rodriguez said.

That’s especially difficult because there are going to be several players that are right on the edge and could potentially help West Virginia, but there might be other spots with greater needs.

“So, this spring is going to be really hard to do that because there's going to be some guys that we don't want to let go that probably going to have to get let go,” Rodriguez said.

Those decisions will be critical because the Mountaineers won’t have the ability to mine a free agent pool or sign somebody up from the practice squad if there are any injuries once fall camp begins. That means once those choices are made, the coaching staff has to hope that the roster remains healthy.

So, while the spring has certainly helped the coaches accomplish some of that there is still work to do.

“We’ve got to look at the roster in totality now and like what we got to do in the portal coming up and what moves we’ve got to make to get it to the best 105,” Rodriguez said.

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