Pat Kirkland has come to call the state of West Virginia home.
Outside of the three years that Kirkland spent at Jacksonville State, he has been at Glenville State, West Virginia, Charleston and now back to Morgantown since the year 2001.
Over those years, Kirkland has held a ton of different positions, ranging from defensive coordinator, secondary coach and assistant head coach at Glenville to coaching the outside linebackers and safeties under Rich Rodriguez in Morgantown and then serving as the director of recruiting.
Kirkland was then the head coach at Charleston, where he served in that role from 2011-22 before rejoining Rodriguez as the special teams coordinator and linebackers coach at Jacksonville State.
“I was always excited about Coach Rod getting another opportunity and I knew that’s a staff I wanted to be a part of. That’s exciting the first time I was with him,” he said.
So, it wasn’t a question that Kirkland would make the move back to the Mountain State when he had the opportunity to follow Rodriguez in his second stint atop the West Virginia football program.
Because of his experience at multiple spots starting as a graduate assistant, then even coaching offense in a bowl game, to the back end of the defense to director of recruiting and even high school relations it prepared him for any role he could potentially be thrust into.
“Probably all of those things prepared me to be a head coach,” Kirkland said.
It also helped him to prepare for his role as the special teams coordinator as well. The biggest challenge is that while there is typically a lot of carryover on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball from week to week, in the kicking game there is more diversity. That means more planning.
There is a lot of self-scouting involved in order to identify things that can be done better and how the coaching staff can switch things up depending on the opponent.
The goal is to keep your core philosophies and schemes the same but each week try to be different enough that you’re not predictable in each of the different phases.
“Just being able to juggle. When you’re the special teams coordinator it’s not just one unit. It’s really six responsibilities, units that you have which means six personnel groupings,” Kirkland said.
Kirkland has focused on the technique during spring football with a big part of his responsibility on special teams being the evaluation of the personnel that is on the roster. That doesn’t just extend to the kickers or returners, but players that can snap, hold or even run down and cover kicks or punts.
Special teams make up anywhere from 18-20-percent of a football game and the goal for Kirkland is to identify not only the personnel but the correct mentality needed at those positions. Accountability is critical in those roles and finding those players that have the ability to make adjustments and avoid mental busts is a must. The Mountaineers want to be aggressive but trust is key.
“We’re not always going to have the perfect call, sometimes they’ve got to make you right,” he said.
The end game isn’t necessarily to lead the Big 12 in any particular category, but instead to use the special teams units to put the Mountaineers in the best position to win football games.
“So, whatever we’ve got to do to put our players in the best position to be ...
