Quick Hits: State of the Program, Defense is Fixable, Injury Update, Pass Game + More

Many of the questions during today's press conference with WVU head football coach Rich Rodriguez were centered around the problems that exist on the defensive side of the ball, but he also talked about the state of the program, Mike Hawkins Jr. as a passer, and a few other things.

Here are the highlights from today's presser.

What he’s seeing with the defensive issues

“I didn’t see anything that we can’t fix. We just got to have the urgency to fix it right away. Coaching-wise, we just got to find what our guys do well and the right position to put them in more consistently. By now we should have a pretty good idea of what our players’ strengths and weaknesses are, so we can plan accordingly as far as what their responsibilities are on the field. It’s frustrating because our guys are all working hard, and we just haven’t had the results and haven’t played the way we need to and the way we should be playing on defense.”

On losing to first year coaches and if the program isn’t where it should be at this point in time

“What are we? Five games into our second year? With a total reboot? I think it’s completely fair to say where you think the program is at in the second year, and don’t think I didn’t evaluate it. I think we’ve made some steps forward, but I also think we have not made some steps forward in other parts of the program. But I’m not going to panic five games into the second year, especially when I knew we had to do a total reboot two years in a row. I evaluate everything every day. There’s some things you can fix in recruiting, but there’s some things you can fix now on defense, and that’s part of what my challenge is to our team and players.”

Injury update on Armoni Weaver-Bomar

“He fractured a finger, and he’s had surgery. It might be 3-4 weeks; I’m not exactly sure how long that will be. That’s kind of an unfortunate thing; he was playing pretty good too.”

Josh Aisosa starting last week and how he played

“Yeah, Nick (Krahe) had been banged up and had the ankle sprain, so I don’t think he was 100%, but Nick got in there and competed. Josh did okay. I’m really proud where he came from three or four months ago; I didn’t think he’d play at all, and now he’s in what we consider the regular rotation. Nick is a veteran guy and a good football player, so he’s healthier this week than he was a week ago.”

If the defense is doing too much

“Anytime you have a simple missed assignment or mistake, you’re like, ‘Golly, how did we mess that up?’ You got to look at the overall picture. Like, ‘How can we just let a guy go free?’ He’s not doing it on purpose, right? So what’s clouding his judgment over his decision-making as a player? You have to dial it back so it clears his mind a little bit, so we don’t make the glaring mistake because they’re thinking too much.”

How Mike Hawkins Jr. has been throwing the ball

“He’s made some really good throws. There was some touch passes he made in the last game where, maybe a month ago, he might have been overthrowing a little bit. So I think he’s learning who he’s throwing to, but also the intent of the play or the intent of the route. I think he’ll continue to get better, and people are going to force us to throw it. They can outnumber you and play Cover 0, and if you can’t pitch and catch, you’re going to have a hard time. But Mike can make all the throws, and I think we got a pretty solid group of receivers.”

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