Rich Rod Calls Out Lack of Urgency to Fix 'Relatively Easy to Fix' Issues

Giving up 373 passing yards to any team is a bad day at the office. For a redshirt freshman Group of Six quarterback with limited game experience to do it? Oh yeah, that's a big red flag.

West Virginia kept Deuce Bailey in check in the first half as he completed 9/16 passes for just 80 yards. In the second half, he got on a heater and carved the Mountaineers up, completing 12/21 passes for 293 yards and three scores.

Rodriguez, to say the least, was none too pleased with what happened in the final 30 minutes of the game, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. When asked if pass coverage was the root of the issue, he responded, “Well, uh, yeah. Pass rush, pass coverage, all that, and more."

WVU's linebackers weren't dropping to their marks well enough, and the coverage on the outside was not much better. Bailey settled in, and it became a game of pitch-and-catch for him and the Chanticleer receivers.

“I don’t think it was an effort thing, which is good, but there are some execution type of stuff that happened repeatedly that it shouldn’t have happened," Rodriguez said. "I’m not going to go into all the details, but I’m like, ‘What are we doing with this?’ And I’m over there screaming on the sidelines that this particular thing — the whole second half and yet it still happened. Maybe I lost my voice. Maybe I’m mute. Maybe nobody hears me. Maybe everybody just clues me out.

“We got to have more of an urgency to fix things that are to me…nothing’s easy to fix, but there are some things that should be relatively easy to fix, and we did not do that in the second half, and so we’ll get that corrected before the sun goes down.”

Rich Rod voiced his concerns about putting too much in defensively during fall camp, but also back in the spring, if you remember correctly. Could it be a case of information overload on that side of the ball that is causing them to play poorly? Could it be that much of the NIL $ went to the offensive side of the ball this offseason to fix those issues, thus creating more problems on the defensive side?

I think it could be both. There is a reason why the coaches, fans, and everyone who looks at this team feel much better about the offense with a dynamic dual-threat QB, a strong duo at RB, and a revamped o-line compared to a defense that, well, doesn't really have a known strength or any "household" names.

It's just one game into the season, so there is still a lot left for this group to prove, but Zac Alley may have to trim down his call sheet to make life easier on a unit that is deploying 11 new starters. Identify what this bunch does well and slowly expand off of it. The more these guys play in the system and play together, the more comfortable they will become.

Add us as a preferred source on Google