Quick Hits: Plan for Repping QBs, Eligibility Situation, Bulletin Board Material + More

Fall camp has officially begun at West Virginia, and the first Rich Rodriguez press conference for the 2025 season is in the books. Below are some highlights/notable quotes from today's presser.

Opening statement

“It went the way I kind of thought it would be, pretty good effort, but by the end of practice, we had a dozen guys cramping up a little bit and dehydrated. A good lesson for our guys to stay hydrated after practice, during practice, and before practice, so we can get through practice. We got some good stuff done. Pretty active defensively.”

If summer workouts helped get ahead a little bit schematically

“In June, we got a lot of scheme work put in as opposed to normally, where we couldn’t even ask our strength coaches what was going on. The strength staff did a good job. I think our guys are a little bigger, a little stronger, a little faster. In decent shape, but they’re never going to be in game shape through summer workouts — just the intensity and the way we go about doing things. We’ll need August camp to get that done, but I thought we did a good job for the most part of guys knowing what they’re supposed to do for the first day.”

What he wants to get accomplished these next 2-3 practices

“The first two weeks, we’ve got to do a lot of evaluation. With so many new guys and being the first year and all that, we’ve got to have a lot of evaluations being taken place throughout the course of practice. Obviously, we still got to teach the fundamental part of it and then teach scheme. Typically, your first camp together is the most difficult from a time standpoint because of all the evaluations. I mean, even the guys that played a little bit last year, which there’s not many of them, we still got to evaluate them. They’re in a new system.”

How camp this year will be different than it was for him last year

“Last year at Jax State, I think we had over 60 new guys, and I don’t think we did a great job, myself included, of evaluation during camp. Some of it was the quarterbacks weren’t live and all that, so there’s some lessons we had to learn from that. We’ve got to be ready the first game, so there’s going to be periods of practice that I typically wouldn’t go live, but we will do that simply because we got to know.”

QB timeline and plan of dividing up reps

“I don’t mind being asked every day because I’m curious too, right? There’s a process of how we’re doing it. We’ve got five guys that we’re trying to get reps in, and all of them got to get an opportunity to show if they can be the guy. I’m hoping there’s more than one. If I have three quarterbacks that are good enough to win with, I’ll play all three. I won’t pull a guy out for just a mistake, and if he’s hot, I’ll keep him in there, but it doesn’t bother me to rotate quarterbacks if they’re good enough to win with. I don’t have a timeline to shorten it down. At some point, you got to have a guy to come out with the first group.”

More on the quarterbacks

“Usually, quarterbacks have some plays they do better or are better at than others. Throughout the next three weeks, if the quarterbacks all keep elevating and we think we have three that are ready to play and win with, we’re going to find out what those three do the best, and they’ll have enough variety that you can’t just cue in on just two or three plays that this quarterback does well. We know a little bit of that now, but part of our deal in the next three weeks with our quarterbacks is like, okay, which plays are they most comfortable with? What do they do the best?”

Using bulletin board material

“Nah. I mean, if you’re picked last or next to last, you might mention it. I think we’re going to be a little better than that and maybe try to use it as some motivation. But I think when the stuff hits the fan and you’re in the middle of a tight game in the third quarter, I don’t think at that time you’re worried about where you’re picked in a poll. You’re going to default to your level of training, no matter where you’re picked or what people think.”

If they have the right pieces to have good o-line play

“Yeah, I think we’re pretty athletic. I think we’re a little deeper now than we were in the spring. That was an area we had to address a little bit. A lot of what we do is so unique to the o-line. Our tempo, and some of the stuff we do, is even for our new coaches; it’s a little bit of an adjustment.”

If he feels better about the depth at wide receiver

“After one day? No. Half of them were cramped up today. I don’t think they’re used to the volume. I don’t know. The portal is still open, right? If we need…I mean, if you’re in the portal now, you’re probably pretty desperate. There might be some good ones still out there, I don’t know. I like our group of wideouts, but I think the volume of a first practice was a little bit of a shock to some of them.”

If the four players waiting on eligibility ruling can do anything

“On their own. And that’s very frustrating. The NCAA I know, has got a big job and there’s a lot of waivers out there, but for all of our guys there’s been similar situations where other players have been in the exact same scenario, and they’ve gotten eligibility or gotten injunctions that allow them to play. That’s where our hope is. But they have to do everything on their own (right now).”