MAILBAG: Portal Poaching, Zac Alley Buyout, In-Season Change? + More

Good Tuesday morning, Mountaineer fans! We have another loaded mailbag this week, so once again, we will be splitting this thing up into multiple pieces. If I don't get to your question today, hang tight. I will get to it. Let's jump in.

From @WVUBagMan:

Q: Why do we keep watching?

A; It's part of the passion. I have covered a few other teams in the pros, and while those fan bases go through many of the same ups and downs, their level of care and commitment doesn't come anywhere near that of West Virginia fans. It means more. Sorry, SEC, I'm stealing your motto. This is a fun offense to watch, and just like 2012, it's a situation where you are just going to have to win shootouts, which they are capable of. Whether they win two more games, five, or somewhere in between, who knows.

From @scoobh45:

Q: Hawkins’ 47.8% pass completion rate...

A: This is where simply looking at a number can get you. I charted three drops and two throwaways. That's five incompletions right there. Take those away, and now he's at 61% for that game. He accounted for 72% of the offense's total yards and was responsible for four of the team's six touchdowns. What more could you want? There is no other quarterback on this roster who can go in there right now and produce better results. Hawkins bails this team out of so many bad situations because of his ability to make guys miss. If you have a pocket passer back there, like Fox, this o-line would have allowed close to a dozen sacks by now. He is not the problem. Giving up 45 points and a combined 1,100 yards of offense in two weeks? Yeah, that's the problem. Hawkins is a star.

From @OldWisdom44:

Q: Why, five weeks into the season, is the defense so lost and confused? They seem to have no clue where to be or what to do.

A: I keep finding myself going back to putting way too much in. There may even be a bit of a ripple effect from the Oklahoma State game where they went to that dime defense and got torched. Not only was it a poor game plan, but that's a full game where you didn't get more reps playing your base defense. For a unit with so many new pieces, that's a big deal. I thought things were more simplified this week, but Iowa State's funky formations and constant personnel changes had something to do with that this week.

From @jeff_ruff:

Q: Will Rich be fired if Zac Alley isn’t?

A: After this year? No. I don't see there being any chance of him getting canned. Year three is where it's going to be critical for him, and by him, I mean Rich Rod. Things look rough right now, but there are still seven games left to be played. That's a lot of ball to learn more about where things are headed — good or bad.

From @412lawyer:

Q: Constantly out of position, missed tackles, bad pursuit angles- is this the worst-coached WVU defense in modern history? Any chance Zac Alley is fired mid-season to try to salvage this squad?

A: I don't want to say never, but I would be completely shocked if there was a mid-season change. As frustrated as he is with that side of the ball, I don't think making a change, if you're going to make one, is worth doing during the season. Who takes over as the DC in the interim? You don't really have someone who's an obvious candidate to step up and fill that role, which is scary. I still believe a part of this is just not having the horses to have a competitive defense. There are several times when they are in the right call, and players just aren't executing and making the play. There's nothing you can do about that. He deserves a lot of the blame, yes, but there's enough of it to go around to others too.

From @juggernott1766:

Q: How long is it going to be before other schools start contacting the good offensive players we have and saying things like, “If you were at OUR school, you wouldn’t have to worry about running your tail off to try and keep the defense from losing the game for you…”

A: I don't know about other schools, but I'm sure some players' agents have already heard through the grapevine that school X may be interested. I'll say this, though: West Virginia is already discussing new deals for some of their top players, including Mike Hawkins Jr. Whether something gets done before the end of the season or not is anyone's guess, but conversations are already happening there.

From @bsow1981:

Q: Our defense is so horrible somebody needs to lose a job, or at least know they aren’t far from it. And our offense is so one-dimensional; we are scoring now, but later, as the schedule gets harder, we are not getting a win anywhere.

A: From my understanding, Zac Alley has full autonomy over the defense, so if a move is made, it will be his decision. I don't see that happening during the season. And offensively, I don't think it's as one-dimensional as it may seem. They are explosive in the passing game when they do throw it, and the more comfortable Hawkins gets in the system, the better he is going to be. We all have to keep in mind that he's only five games in as a full-time starter and is already putting up some ridiculous numbers.

From @pourci22096:

Q: Where is Jacob Bradford? Why are they not giving him an opportunity? The safety play is terrible.

A: I liken it to the offensive line situation last year. The staff liked Malik Agbo and Josh Aisosa, but they wouldn't go away from the starters, regardless of how badly that unit performed. That tells me he's just not quite ready yet. Now, could he get some burn this week against Arizona? Possibly. If he performs well in practice, he is going to get opportunities.

From @EddieYdaEerfan:

Q: We can score the ball. But that defense is like Swiss cheese. I honestly believe it’s on the DC. Can we fire him? If so, why don’t we do it? It would send a strong message that we will not put up with this poor coaching!

A: You can fire him, but will they? Probably not. Not right now, at least. I said this last week, and it's not something anyone wants to hear, but when you're in a time period where every dollar you have/spend is so precious, you have to be extremely smart and cautious. Did they overpay for Alley? Did they hire the wrong guy? Maybe. Firing him now just means a higher buyout, and you're not going to just magically fix the defense by showing him the door in the middle of the season. At least I wouldn't think. If this continues throughout the rest of the season, then yeah, that will be something Rodriguez has to at least consider.

From @MmaMountaineer:

Q: Yup, my assumptions from last week were accurate. Offense looks solid other than the penalties. I think it’s time to have a serious convo about Zac Alley's future as the DC. Defense can’t stop the pass, can’t stop the run; they may as well have not even been on the field. Thoughts

A: It's brutal to watch. What has to be maddening for Rich Rod is that this defense plays well in pockets to where you think they might snap out of it or play well enough to win the game. The problem is, those pockets aren't long enough. The start of the game, for one, and those couple of possessions in the second half when the interception happened and you got another stop to take the lead are when it looked like they could do enough to win...and then they revert back to having bad eyes and taking bad angles. Unfortunately, you're just going to have to win shootouts. Fortunately, they have the offense to do it.

From @BatmanLucid:

Q: How many offensive players will we replace because they will run as soon as the portal opens because of the non-existent defense?

A: Who is leaving, though? The o-line has been alright, but none have played well enough to get "poached," so to speak. DJ Epps and Jaden Bray are in their final year. Cam Cook is probably NFL-bound, and Mike Hawkins Jr. is tailor-made for this offense. I understand the concern, but as of this very moment, I don't see any of West Virginia's main core on offense leaving. Hawkins loves this offense and is only going to get better in it.

From @ezraaward:

Q: Let's think rationally - if Zac Alley is really the problem - what do we do about it? As bad as it's been, mid-season coordinator turnover can't be good. Who would we go with to replace him? How does the defense get from where it is to enough to get to 6 wins?

A: Right now? I don't think you can do anything other than hope that it gets better and make suggestions to fix it. Your second question is why I don't believe you can make a move right now, even if you wanted to. I don't have any idea who he would trust to make that unit better. And lastly, it starts with getting more pressure and creating more turnovers. You can overcome a lot of issues by stealing possessions and getting after the passer.

From @WVUBucketHat:

Q: Why do you feel the offense really got it going in the 2nd half?

A: A lack of execution early, really. I know that sounds like coach-speak, but there were just some things that they left on the table AND you had the onslaught of penalties in the first half, which put them off schedule. The offensive line didn't do a great job of blocking things up, and in the second half, I think many of the big plays were still just Hawkins making things happen.

From @SCTrader101WV:

Q: Is there a buyout associated with Coach Alley? If so, how much?

A: There is, of course. If he is fired without cause (performance-based), he is owed 100% of his remaining salary. He's getting $1.5M per year.

From @daghaphmd:

Q: Iowa State is in its first year of a rebuild with a new coach. We are in our second. They had less than $13 million in NIL funding for players, and we had over 20 million. Isn’t this loss solely on Rich Rodriguez’s ability to assess talent or coach adequately?

A: I believe it's a big part of it, yes. Some of it was a lack of execution on the players' part, poor coaching on defense, and I do think we are seeing week by week that they missed on some of their portal additions on the defensive side. It's a little bit of everything. But you are absolutely right. There's no reason you should lose to a team that's in a massive rebuild like that, especially given the type of offensive production they had leading up to that game.

From @jriley322:

Q: Still seems like we have no size on defense at all! Your thoughts on this Swiss cheese defense?

A: Spot on. I said this back in the fall, and some folks thought it was ridiculous commentary. They are extremely light up front and it was my No. 1 concern heading into the year, particularly against physical teams like Iowa State. Personally, I believe the defensive line is the biggest issue right now, even more so than the secondary. They aren't knocking the o-line back, muddying up the run game, or collapsing the pocket. You can hide a lot of deficiencies in the back end by simply rushing the quarterback and right now, they just aren't getting home.

From @SteveAustin_WVU:

Q: Chances of actually winning a Big 12 game? Offense will have to end every game with possession of the ball. This defense is high school level.

A: They'll win some games, haha. The defense is bad, but it's not like the offense is in a bad spot, too. The reality is, when you have an offense this explosive, you're naturally going to be in a position to win every game you play. Now, you may have to score 50 to do it, but you'll at least go into every game having a fighting chance because you know you can move the ball and score it. I went more in-depth on this very thing yesterday.

From @a_person58:

Q: What is your confidence level in Lorient & Buchanan playing for WVU basketball this season?

A: Your guess is as good as mine, haha. These court rulings are all over the place, and just when you think someone will be cleared, they're not. My gut tells me they will play, but I truly have no idea. The longer that thing goes, the better. You're hoping they just keep kicking that thing down the road as much as possible, to the point where it doesn't even matter.

To participate in next week's mailbag, send me a DM on X (@Callihan_) reply to my tweet asking for submissions on Saturday, or place your question in the comments section under my poston Facebook.

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