Quick Hits: Bad Day of Practice, Loafing, Hitting the Transfer Portal + More

Day two of fall camp was a step in the wrong direction, according to West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez. He discussed what went wrong, where they need to improve to get back on track, and more.

Here are the notable quotes from today's press conference.

Opening statement

“Didn’t think we took great steps today. In fact, I thought we were a little bit soft at times, so got some good in, but wasn’t the step that we probably needed to take. Got to get better tomorrow.”

Evaluation process before the pads come on

“There’s still a lot you can do in shorts from assignment standpoint, from a technique standpoint, running full speed. It should be easier to run full speed in shorts, right? That was probably what got me a little bit riled up at times, is that we’re in shorts, and it’s nice weather. I addressed it with the team. There’s not a whole lot of experience with that group, so I’m not expecting like a handful of guys to grab hold of it — that’s our job as coaches, I really believe that during practice, the leadership falls on the staff. We got to make sure we’re pushing them to the point where they learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable. They’re not there yet.”

Seeing leadership during rough practices and players loafing

“It’s not that you want quarterbacks to be a leader or MIKE linebackers and all that. When we’re practicing, that’s on the coaches. If I’m the head coach, I failed today to have our best practice, and so did the rest of the staff. But the leadership part of it, like, during games, locker room, coaches aren’t around, obviously, you want great leadership. Practice, I’m not expecting it. I’m not asking for it. That’s our job. Now we have a lot of guys that go hard all the time, and the guys that did it the last two days, the guys that did it today, you register in your mind and say that guy’s got that edge, and I’ll use that as an example. I think we had two running backs that finished workouts today, and I told those two, ‘That’s pretty good.’ There’s still 4,000 kids in the portal, isn’t there? I got a recruiting staff. I mean, I got a big ole recruiting staff and they do a really nice job. They’re still looking. We ain’t got a game. School don’t start for a couple weeks. I have a spot or two open, I’m just saying.”

Further expanding on only two running backs finishing practice

“If we had no medical trainers, we probably would have zero injuries because they had nobody to go to. We got 30 of them. So they’re like, ‘Oh, where’s the trainer at?’ I got a great training staff, but I’m just saying, like what running backs finished the entire practice without tapping out somewhere? Two. Two. Now, I can play a game without running backs. I could run the quarterback or slot receiver, but I don’t want to. I’ve always had really good running backs, and I’ve got good running backs here. I got a good group, but we finished with two. So you think I’m not going to talk to my recruiting staff this afternoon? We’re running a business. It helps to have some running backs.”

Early thoughts on the tight ends

“Fairly athletic. We do a lot more with our tight ends than traditionally. Our guys are in line, they’re split out. We’re alive with 11 personnel, the majority of the game. It’s become a position over the last seven, eight, ten years in our offense that are kind of guys that did a little bit of everything. We got a lot of new guys, but we got a pretty good group there.”

Opening statement

Evaluation process before the pads come on

Seeing leadership during rough practices and players loafing

Further expanding on only two running backs finishing practice

Early thoughts on the tight ends

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