Quick Hits: QBs in the Run Game, Role of the GM, Staff Organization + More

The West Virginia University football program held its 13th spring practice on Tuesday and head coach Rich Rodriguez gave his thoughts on the team following the morning practice session.

Quarterbacks within the run game

They all got pretty good athleticism and I guess you really don’t know until you’ll go live, and sometimes you really don’t know until you go into a game, their willingness. They all have to be at least be a willing runner and I think we have that. These guys are all willing and if its called for and the way they play us is giving the quarterback run, I feel confident they can do that, so that’s a good thing.

A couple guys might be a little faster, maybe a little shiftier than others but all of them as a group give that ability that we can play with 11.

Team progress through the spring practice period

I think overall, the tempo of how we’re getting through practice, going from drill from drill, some of the things we expect, that’s gotten better but it should after 12, 13 practices. Theres another step we need to take. If I go back and look at my first spring practice notes from eight, nine, whatever different spots it was, it probably was all pretty similar. I still think there is another level of intensity we will get to.

Willingness to showcase his players during the Gold-Blue Showcase

If we didn’t have a transfer portal open up, I think more coaches would be willing to play more guys. The scheme part, I’m not worried too much about showing what you do scheme-wise because people are going to watch our film from the last few years or whatever and get that part of it. So, I don’t worry about that part too much.

I’m not overly concerned with the portal thing anyway because I think our guys like it here and I think most of them want to stay, so the reality is though we have to have some roster movement and we’re not the only ones in the country that have to do that.

Shifting to afternoon practices in the summer/fall

I did morning one time, I think I was in Arizona and we didn’t have an indoor [practice facility] at the time and it can get pretty toasty in the afternoon. So, one or two years we did morning practices but I didn’t like it. I don’t like it now.

This year, going back to classes in the morning, coaches meet in the morning, practice in the afternoon. We don’t any games at seven or eight a.m.

It was too late for me to change it. And I understand why coaches do it. Half of their classes are online anyway, but I like our guys get used to the time that we play which is usually in the afternoon. That’s the main reason we’ll be changing it.

Role of the WVU General Manager

I want our staff, obviously because we’re still recruiting on top of paying them, everybody on our staff is involved in our rosters decisions and roster management. In particular, our coordinators and our position coaches.

I want out position coach – if you’re the running back coach, you’re going to have a huge say in what your running back room is going to look like. I am and other people on our staff, the GM is going to help organize it and he’ll have hit opinion and his opinion is valuable.

Our GM is not picking our running backs for instance. He’s going to help, but because you still recruit. It’s a different dynamic.

I don’t mind talking to agents once and awhile but I’d rather not. I’ll let Chuck handle that.

I did that the first three weeks I was here and I wanted to stick a needle in my eye.

Staff organization

You want to make sure everybody has a role. I think guys that are on staff, no matter what role they are in, they can be in strength or training or nutrition or recruiting or on field, whatever it is, they all want to have a role and feel like they play a part in the success of the program. So, its my job, and a couple of other guys on the staff’s job, is to make sure those roles are defined. I’ve done that to some degree right now, but the reality is a do a little get together, not really a retreat because we probably won’t retreat anywhere because we’ll do it here, but we’ll spend three days discussing every day for the 365 days of our program and every single staff member’s role and what their expectations are.

Coming up, its usually in May, that everybody in the staff will be involved in that. It’s long, I don’t like long meetings but it will take three, three and a half days to explain the that organizational chart, what everybody does, what the expectations are, what their role is and then go from there.