Quick Hits: 2nd Scrimmage Thoughts, International Recruiting, Student Tryouts + More

Another day of practice is in the books, as is another Rich Rodriguez press conference. Below are the highlights from today's media availability with the head ball coach.

If it takes a couple of games for the offense to click

“I think offensively, in general, it takes a little bit longer to get that rhythm because you’re not going full speed all the time against comparable guys on the scout team. We’ll do the best we can and adapt. What I don’t want to happen, whether it’s on offense or defense or special teams, is have our guys play slower or ineffective because they’re thinking too much. Whatever volume they can handle mentally, we’ll have, but by Monday of next week I want to know exactly what the plan is offense, defense, and special teams that we won’t screw up, per se.”

If anything came of the student body tryouts

“We had about 12-15 guys come out, and there’s some prospects, but I think we only have one potential spot, maybe two. We’re still discussing it, and it has to come from the student body. Well, I don’t know if it does or not. I don’t know what’s going on in college football now. You can come from the Steelers. I like Coach Mike. Maybe I’ll have to give Coach McCarthy a call and say, ‘Hey, can you give me a heads up on anybody that might be coming back?”

Evaluation on TE Josh Sapp

“He’s got experience. He’s got great ball skills. He’s learning how to be a physical blocker. He’s got enough size to do that and enough experience to do that. He’s really, the last couple weeks especially with Ryan Ward being banged up and Cam Ball being banged up a little bit, he’s taken a lot of reps with the first group and has gotten better. His physicality and blocking in the open field, which is a big thing for our tight ends, he’s done a good job of getting better and better.”

Thoughts from the second scrimmage compared to the first one

“It was light and easy. The ones didn’t take a lot of reps. We treated it like an exhibition game. A lot of the older guys didn’t play much. They did 15 or 20 minutes of thud. The second group probably did about 35 plays, and then the young guys had probably 40 plays. We wanted to get a good, long look at those younger guys — threes or what have you are going to be ready to play. That was just one little test, but that’s not the only test.”

If the level of intensity has increased with season around the corner

“It’s been about the same. It’s never been bad. It’s always been pretty even, which is good. Now, we started off, and there were moments where we were soft, you know, pillow fights, and the situational awareness is not where I want it to be all the time, but it’s not like it’s horrible. It’s not like guys are messing around on the sidelines or whatever. It’s just the level of intensity that I want to see out of them all the time in practice is always going to probably be a work in progress. But for the most part, these guys have been very conscientious. You tell them something, they pay attention. They’re on time; they work pretty hard. Now, every day we’ll find a loaf or two because their version of loafing and ours as a coaching staff doesn’t always match up.”

Recruiting international talent

“There’s more international players that are coming to America. They’ve always done it in other sports, but there’s more that are coming in football than ever before. There’s some organizations that really…you’re getting some like big, tall, athletic …they might be a little raw, but there’s some really talented ones coming. We’ll go anywhere to recruit. We love being local, and that helps, but no matter what country, if they’re the right guy and they can play at this level, we’ll welcome them to Morgantown, West Virginia.”

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