Quick Hits: Saturday Scrimmage, Depth Evaluation, Offensive Line + More

West Virginia University head coach Rich Rodriguez provides some insight through the 12th spring practice

West Virginia University head coach Rich Rodriguez | Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

The West Virginia University football program held its 12th spring practice on Saturday.

Head coach Rich Rodriguez met with the media following the morning practice session

Saturday scrimmage

We ran maybe 90-something plays and I think we got some good stuff on tape to evaluate. A lot of things to work on of course. I think the effort is pretty good – we’re getting there.

I’m unhappy with the depth, I guess, but I think every coach is probably unhappy with their depth at this point in the spring, but I like a lot of the guy’s effort and some of the guys have continued to get better, but we do got to increase our competition at most of our positions. I hope it comes from a lot of guys within, but inevitably, its probably going to come from a few spots from guys that aren’t here yet.

Offensive line

The o-line, all the starters are gone, and I think three of the backups are gone, so none of those guys have played. So, that’s a whole new thing. (offensive line) coach (Jack) Bicknell and (assistant offensive line) coach (Derek) Dressler and them probably have the hardest job just getting those guys [ready]. I still think we need – I don’t know if we’re deep enough and have the competition we have yet, but I think they’re trying hard and made progress. But anytime you have, at that position, a lot of inexperience, it makes you a little bit nervous.

Sorting the Roster

You have to be honest with your players and tell them where they stand all the time. At the end of the spring, where they’re at. We call these media rooms the ‘truth rooms. We’ll them where they are at in the depth chart, we’ll them what they need to work on, and what they are good at. It’s not all negative, but you’re still going against each other, right? And so, it’s still hard to evaluate because we’re not going against an outside team or something like that.

Quarterback leadership

You want somebody to lead the team, but everybody always worries about leadership during practice, that’s what coaches are there for. We’re supposed to be leading it in practice. During a scrimmage when coaches aren’t on the field, but I’m still on the field, but games when the coaches aren’t around, in the summertime or locker rooms, that’s when you hope to have some leadership.

The best leadership is a earned leadership from the standpoint is you know what you’re doing. I think a lot of times the best leaders are the guys that somebody will go to if they’re not sure what to do on a play and you tell them. Its not somebody that ‘rah, rah’, jump on them because they screwed up or whatever. It’s the guy that said ‘hey, this is what you do on this play, this is what you do on that play.’ I say that because its harder now for the quarterbacks to be ‘that guy’ because they’re still learning, but they all, by the end of the summer, I really think, all of them, the attitudes of the quarterbacks are really good and they all want to be and they all want to learn the system and right now they’re just learning about they’re doing. I think by the end of the summer when (quarterbacks coach) Rhett (Rodriguez) has more time with them, all of them will be almost an extension of the coaching staff. That’s what I want, to be an extension of us.

Player’s personal coaches

I think some guys don’t like it or whatever, as long as they’re working on football, I don’t really care. Now, some of our guys have their own quarterbacks coach. That’s a good thing because you know they’re working on football. What I want them to or the guy that’s working with them back home is help them do our stuff.

Particularly shotgun, you have different types of drops in shotgun. Everybody thinks, well you just catch the ball – there’s different footwork involved in shotgun timing, whether its quick game, play action, drop back passing, there’s different timing in shotgun offenses than some others. And so, our timing is kind of set, so hopefully their quarterback trainers will help them develop the skills that correlate to we’re doing. Now, that our quarterbacks have been in the spring, they’ll be able to tell their quarterback coach, ‘these are the things we want to work on.

I like it. They got a trainer and a guys going to work with them, shoot, they’re working on football, its better than other things they can be doing.

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