Everything Rich Rodriguez Said Following WVU's Win Over Robert Morris

West Virginia has moved to 1-0 following a 45-3 win over Robert Morris. Shortly after, head coach Rich Rodriguez met with the media to recap today's action.

Here's everything that Rich Rod said in his postgame press conference.

Opening statement

“I don’t know if I’ve ever had or seen three fumbles in four plays. I think that’s what we had. I know we had three straight fumbles. We obviously didn’t play well at all in the first half. West Virginia beating West Virginia. There were some things we did okay, but we weren’t playing like we should have. The second half, it went like it should have. We’ll take the win and learn from it. obviously, there’s a lot of things to fix and clean up. There’s a lot of guys playing for the first time, and there’s a lot of things as a staff to be better in the next week.”

If there were any emotions for him in his first game back

“Yeah, it did a little bit, of course. I think coming back and the Mantrip…we didn’t do the Mantrip when I was here, and that was pretty neat. The crowd, I’m talking about unbelievable. Great crowd, dressed in gold, into the game. Unfortunately, we didn’t give them enough good moments in the first half, but I thought the West Virginia fans showed up today.”

Thoughts on Cam Vaughn’s day

“He’s obviously a great athlete. He’s a great competitor. He really loves to compete. He always feels like he can get open or get by somebody. I’m glad we took a deep shot. We weren’t throwing deep balls today much, but it was good. Cam, I think, is one of the most explosive guys in the country, and I’m glad he got some plays today.”

Why Nicco Marchiol was named the starter

“He showed it during practice. He was the most consistent. Understood (the offense), got a feel for the game. He’s a gritty player. All the quarterbacks run pretty good, and they’re all willing runners, but Nicco’s a competitive guy. He’ll do what he’s got to do to win the game.”

Thoughts on the defense allowing two yards per play

“Our front did a good job of getting the guy on the ground. I thought we tackled pretty well. They’re not a high explosive team, but I felt during the game that the defense was going to be okay.”

How the other quarterbacks played

“If we had played better and coached better, these guys would have got in the game earlier, and we could have made a better assessment. I thought when Jaylen (Henderson) came in, he ran really well. He’s got a nice burst. And then the two young guys, Scotty (Fox) and Khalil (Wilkins), they’re really talented guys that have really shown some stuff.”

What the message was like at halftime

“I didn’t try to scrape paint off the wall or anything like that. It was just, hey, we’ve got to take care of the football, play a little bit smarter, and the penalties are really frustrating — we’ve got to get that corrected right away.”

The emotions during Country Roads

“The greatest tradition in college sports is singing Country Roads after a win. It was just a beautiful day. The stadium was packed.”

Jahiem White’s day

“Jahiem ran hard. I’m a little disappointed we didn’t get him loose for some longer runs. I’m going to have to see what the reason was for that. We might have been getting outnumbered; I don’t know what the case was. He’s an explosive guy, and we didn’t get him enough explosive opportunities today.”

What needs to be fixed heading into Ohio game

“The self-inflicted mistakes, we’ve got to fix in like a day. Fix by tomorrow. We’re going to play a very tough Ohio team on the road. It’s going to be a very uncomfortable situation. I think a lot of guys got experience for the first time in our system, which is a good thing. They needed this, and then we get better from it. They (Ohio) almost won that game against a pretty good Rutgers team. They’ll get our guys’ attention. We got to work on us first and then we’ll be into Ohio tomorrow night.”