Quick Hits: Updates on Newcomers, Changes on Defense, Offensive Balance + More

Rich Rod goes over what he saw on tape from last week's loss and what we can expect in Ames.

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

WVU head football coach Rich Rodriguez met with the media Tuesday afternoon for his weekly press conference, and he discussed a variety of things, from updates on newcomers we haven't seen yet, the defensive struggles, the run/pass split, and a whole lot more.

Here are some of the highlights from today's presser.

Changes after last week

"There are a little bit of shifts in personnel. Like for us, we have three safety positions and they're similar but they're also different. You'd think you'd have it figured out by now, but inevitably, until you play games...this guy might be better at this safety position and this guy at this safety position, and what we're doing with them."

The issues on defense

"The first game, I was upset because we gave up some big plays because we lost containment and let the quarterback scramble around and make big plays. And then this game, we gave up a lot of big plays because, one, we didn't get any pressure on the quarterback, but two, our eyes were bad on some of the coverages that we had. We gave him all kinds of time to run around and let guys get that far deep. When you're throwing a deep ball as much as they did and you have that much time to throw it, it's hard for anybody to cover it. You could look at it as personnel, or you could look at it as, geez, schematically, we've got to help them out a little bit better. I think it's a combination of a lot of stuff. After watching the film, it wasn't like, 'Oh, these guys can't play in the secondary.' I didn't sense that at all. We got to put these guys in a better position to be able to play or defend those plays."

If JaCorey Thomas will be a factor on defense soon

"He's a lot closer now. It's only been what? A couple of weeks? He's a guy that should be able to help us. He's played in the SEC, he's got good experience; he's a talented guy. He's part of the safety rotation where we're moving guys around a little bit, and he's a factor now because he's been with us for a couple of weeks. I think this is a big week for him to get ready. He's both at the free and the boundary safety."

How the offensive line has performed thus far

"I think we've been solid up front. I think Kevin (Brown) played his best game, and he's a true freshman. I think he played pretty good football. I think we've been solid up front. Carsten Casady probably had his best game at right tackle. Bubba (Grayson) and Wes (King) have been solid there. Nick (Krahe) got banged up a little, but he's playing a new position. Those five and Josh Aisosa, we're starting to get real comfortable with. I still think we have more guys we can play up front, but we haven't had the opportunity to do that like we want. As the season goes along, we're going to have to play more guys."

Initial thoughts on Iowa State

"Physical, aggressive, well-coached. You can tell the five or six guys that he took over from Washington State (on defense) are all really good players and that they understand the system. They don't give up a lot of big plays. They played Utah tight to the end, and they've been a good program for a long time, but Jimmy (Rogers) has done a great job bringing his guys from Washington State."

Update on Utah transfer RB NaQuari Rogers

"He just got cleared and is transitioning. Today will actually be his first practice, and we'll see how quickly he'll learn. He's a veteran guy and could help us. Right now, it's only been Cam (Cook) and Amari (Latimer), but if Na can help us, it would be good. We'd like to play three or four running backs. It's a long season, so we're going to need all of those guys."

If he is happy with the run/pass split

"I've never been worried about it. I don't even go into the game saying, 'We need to rush for this much' or 'We need to throw for this much.' It's like, what do we need to do to get first downs and win? So inevitably, if you're running the ball well, we kind of stick to that a little bit more. But there's never like a certain ratio like it has to be 50/50, or we should be 70/30 run to pass. Believe it or not, we have as many pass plays in our call sheet as we do run plays. But if you're running well, we usually don't get to all the pass stuff."