West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez addressed the media following the twelfth practice of spring football. WVSports.com provides a summary of what was said.
--Head coach Rich Rodriguez said that they scrimmaged today and had about 90 plays. They need to increase their competition and he hopes that happens from within but from a few spots that likely comes from the outside. He isn't unhappy with the roster, but does want to see more competition.
--None of the offensive line have played and the coaches there have the hardest job getting those guys. He doesn't know if they are deep enough or have the competition there yet but they're trying hard and making progress.
--The purpose behind the scrimmage was to make things more competitive. He needs to watch the film to see if that's progressed. There's a couple that was really important to see if they took another step.
--Rodriguez said you have to be honest with your players and tell them where they stand. They tell them what they need to work on and it's not all negative. They call the meetings the truth run.
--Rodriguez has never worried about personality when it comes to picking a starting quarterback. It's about running the offense and making plays. When the coaches aren't around that's when you hope to see some leadership and the best type is earned leadership that happens overtime.
--The reason they ended spring on April 5 so they had a week of meetings with players. On the 7th over the next five days they will have meetings with the players and tell them where they're at and give them an opportunity to get in the portal if they suggest to do that. Some of them are going to be really hard because they're competing and doing everything right but they don't have enough room to keep them.
--They have to get to 105 by July.
--You can't do team stuff with the ball, but individual stuff with the ball in the summer. They'll have some time to work with the players in June. Conditioning is such a factor and there a whole long ways from playing right now.
--Rodriguez doesn't care if players want to work with their own quarterback coach in the off-season as long as they are working on football. They want that coach to help the player do their stuff. There is different timing in shotgun offenses than other offenses. So they need to have those coaches correlate their skills to what they do.
--With the video technology they have they're creating cutups of every player in drills with good, bad and indifferent. Some of the coaches will meet with the players and watch that. They'll have that for everybody and give their thoughts on it to come up with where those guys are on the depth chart to tell them where they're at.
--Rodriguez likes all of the players on the team but you have to be good enough to win with. Some of the freshmen have a ways to go, but some of them could have great careers here.
--Last year at Jacksonville State it was 60 guys. There are already at 60 now. Rodriguez said that he was perplexed because what he saw early in the year wasn't what he saw and thought in camp at Jax State. He saw signs of it being OK in camp and he's trying to learn from that because he can't afford for things to start slow here.
--Sometimes the transfer portal guys need developed too, but Rodriguez doesn't believe they can afford to wait on 25 freshmen like they used ...
