Rich Rodriguez walked onto the turf of the Caperton Indoor Facility on Tuesday morning to once again conduct a spring practice of the West Virginia University football team. It had been nearly two decades since the last time he oversaw a Mountaineer spring practice.
Did he give himself a second or two to soak it in, that his journey through college football led him back to the site of some of his greatest coaching triumphs?
“No,” Rodriguez said with a smile Tuesday afternoon in front of the media. “Hell no. Fifteen seconds in, I’m yelling at somebody like an idiot, probably over nothing.”
The task at hand – returning the Mountaineers to the plateau they enjoyed in Rodriguez’s first tenure as WVU’s coach from 2001-07 – takes precedence over any nostalgia. There’s plenty of work to do, he said, and he’s always been one to be laser-focused on that job.
“It’s almost like a switch gets flipped, you know what I mean?” he said. “You go in there and it’s like a bomb can go off behind me or a five-car crash. I wouldn’t even know because I’m looking right ahead, getting ready to yell at the quarterbacks.”
From Tuesday until April 5’s Gold and Blue Spring Showcase, Rodriguez and the Mountaineers will have 15 practices to begin molding this new version of WVU football. “New” will be the operative term during that time. There are new faces on the coaching staff among some of the familiar ones to WVU football fans. There are plenty of new faces among the roster, players who will have to step into starting roles following a nearly complete turnover of last year’s first-string lineup on offense and defense.
For the first day, Rodriguez said he appreciated the team’s effort.
“I think that the intent was good,” he said. “They worked pretty hard. I’ll watch the film, too. But we had pre-snap penalties, four or five of those on offense. And I’m used to going four or five practices without having one.
“We’ve got to fix that up front with the big guys,” he continued. “They’re still feeling their way in the first practice, getting the timing down. But I liked the effort from back where I was seeing it.”
While Rodriguez liked the effort, he’s also demanding effectiveness. WVU brass are looking for a reversal of fortunes with the football team. Since joining the Big 12 in 2012, the Mountaineers have finished with eight or more wins just four times and finished with 10 wins just once. They are 3-6 in bowl games, and last year’s 6-7 finish cost former coach Neal Brown his job.
Under Brown, WVU finished with six or fewer wins in five of his six seasons. That ushered in the return of Rodriguez, who spent the last three seasons shepherding Jacksonville State from the Football Championship Subdivision into the Football Bowl Subdivision and finishing last year as Conference USA champions.
Rodriguez is trying to return WVU to the glory days of his first stint, where he won 60 games and his teams won two New Year’s Day bowls. He and his coaching staff will spend these 15 practices evaluating talent, in 11-on-11 drills as well as one-on-one and two-on-two drills. There will be even more of that when the team can practice in pads.
One thing Rodriguez and his staff will always analyze is players’ competitive fire. Exhibiting that fire will go a long way to climbing the depth chart.
“The guys that are non–competitive, they ain’t gonna make it,” he said. “That doesn’t make them a bad person. I want guys to go crawl over people to win. If you’re not a competitive guy, you’re gonna stand out in the wrong way.”
The Mountaineers are without a top running backs coach after Chad Scott took that job at Texas on the eve of spring practice. That doesn’t mean WVU’s running backs aren’t receiving instruction, Rodriguez said. Senior offensive assistant Travis Trickett has been working with the group, as has assistant running backs coach Noel Devine. Rodriguez hopes to hire a new RB coach within a week.
“I have some guys in mind,” he said. “I’ll be able to find a good coach.”
Story by Derek Redd
