Quick Hits: Coaching Miscues, Money Talks, State of the CB Room + More

West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez appears to still be concerned with certain aspects of his team after five spring practices, but there's still plenty of time to get things corrected.

Following Thursday's practice, Rodriguez met with the media to answer some questions. Here are some of the highlights from today's press conference.

Recap of practice No. 5

“I thought we got some work done, still got a long way to go. Learning the schemes, terminology, and how we play and all that is going to be a little bit of a process. Plus, you’re never in shape in spring ball. Conditioning really takes place in the summer and August camp. But right now, we’re not in good enough shape to run our stuff the way we want, but they’ll get there.”

Biggest problem with practices right now

“The guys have worked hard. I think the biggest drawback to our pace right now is more coach-oriented. Even though a lot of the coaches have been together, this whole group, coaches and managers and trainers and everybody else, have not worked together but for five practices. We meet enough, I mean we meet more than Congress, so you’d think we’d have all that fix all of our problems. I’ll have another long staff meeting today, just talking about the efficiency of coaching and what I call coaching on the run. Everything is situational - down and distance and all that, but we’re not doing a really good job staff-wise of managing that. We have a certain number of plays, guys are going to run, a certain down and distance. It’s on the script. The plays may not be on the script, but the down and distance is on the script. So, to me, we’re not efficient enough in practice. I think our coaches are still adjusting a little bit to how I want to do it.”

Development of the cornerbacks

“Everybody says quarterback is the hardest position to play as a freshman, it might be corner. Not from a mental standpoint as much as a physical standpoint. It’s a hard position and if you’re not solid there, like three deep solid, you’ll get exposed. We attacked that in the portal, and we got some young guys that look okay, and we talk about it every day, we still may be getting another half dozen or so in the next portal thing if it doesn’t work out. I’ve liked where we’ve progressed in just these five practices. We’ve challenged them and they’ve done pretty well against something that’s kind of hard to go against.”

When money discussions with players take place

“Some of that was going on in the last portal period in January. I had way too many (conversations). And then I hired Chuck Lilly, my GM, and I’m saying you can handle these agents I’m tired of talking to agents. If I have to I will, but stick a needle in my eye, right? We have another discussion right after spring ball. We kind of have an NFL model, salary cap kind of a deal. QB1, QB2, QB3, and left tackle one is going to be slotted for this amount. It’s going to be tough to tell after just spring ball, so we’ll have to have some adjustment period after fall camp too. We’ve got to be able to make sure we have the money to pay the guys. We want to be a program that people truly earn success, and when they’ve had success, they’ve played and done well, they get paid accordingly.”

Recap of practice No. 5

Biggest problem with practices right now

Development of the cornerbacks

When money discussions with players take place

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