Apr. 2—MORGANTOWN — West Virginia's Gold-Blue game is just a couple of days away on April 5 at 1 p.m., which will be the first look at Rich Rodriguez's second tenure in Morgantown. However, it's no longer a game and instead, what Rodriguez calls a "showcase."
There won't be a blue team or a gold team, like most schools have. Every player will be on the same team. It's going to be a glorified practice to get fans hyped for the fall.
There will be some aspects of a game, though. Rodriguez said there will be some seven-on-seven and some individual drills. Not all players will get equal spotlight and some might not get action at all.
The biggest position in question on Saturday will be the quarterback position and getting a glimpse of who the next signal caller will be. There are six options and some or all will be on display.
"Debating whether I'm going to have all the quarterbacks live or not, " Rodriguez said. "We've had them all live the other day, and most of them live [Tuesday ]. Not sure what I don't do yet Saturday."
Some quarterbacks will be throwing, which will be nice to see in action before one of them is named the starter in the summer and then behind center when the season starts on August 30 against Robert Morris.
Rodriguez's hesitancy and avoidance of having a traditional spring game comes from the ever-changing world of college football. Other than the obvious injury issue, the transfer portal is the biggest deterrent from an actual spring game.
The spring portal opens up after the spring game on April 16. If coaches had an actual game, it'd be a "showcase " for other teams to see players in action that they could take in the portal.
"If we didn't have a transfer portal open up, I think more coaches would be willing to play more guys, " Rodriguez said.
Despite hesitancy to show too many players, Rodriguez doesn't think any players on his roster have intentions to jump.
"The reality is that we have to have some roster movement, " Rodriguez said. "We're not the only ones in the country that have to do that."
Rodriguez still has to shrink his roster size down to 105 while adding some more players in the portal. He's been evaluating players throughout practices, but doesn't think he'll be doing too much evaluating on Saturday.
Rodriguez mentioned playing against another team for the spring game, as Colorado coach Deion Sanders requested, but only if the portal was moved or there was only one. Sanders' request was recently denied by the NCAA.
From a personnel perspective, there won't be too much to gain on Saturday, and scheme /plays-wise, there won't be too much either, despite Rodriguez saying he doesn't care about showing off plays to other teams.
"The scheme part, I'm not too worried about showing what you do scheme-wise because people are going to watch your film, " Rodriguez said. "I don't worry about that part too much."
So, what's the point of Saturday's Gold-Blue game ? Information on the football team isn't the focus. It'll be more on the festivities, the tailgating, stores selling merchandise, bars filling up and everything else that's not the product on the field.
"I'd like to have a nice crowd, " Rodriguez said. "There are neat things and festivities planned around the spring scrimmage."
