Rich Rod Makes It Clear What Must Change for WVU Moving Forward

You might be clamoring for changes to be made in one way or another as a WVU fan, whether that's in areas of the coaching staff or the roster. But the group that started the season is going to be the group that finishes it together.

The thing that has prevented West Virginia from having a special season is the defense. That's not a secret. The Mountaineers rank 137th in all of FBS in total defense, giving up 501 yards per game, and 131st in scoring defense, allowing 34.6 points per game.

"You can't win doing what we did at the end of the game offensively," WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez said, "And that I'm not so much concerned with, but you can't win playing defense like that, and that's been the story all year, so it's very frustrating."

Change, in some way, is needed, and everyone in the building understands that. And I'm not necessarily talking about the future here. We can have that discussion at season's end.

This is more about the here and now.

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What can change, game-planning-wise, play-calling-wise, personnel-wise, to help the Mountaineers improve on that side of the ball in these final three games so that they have a chance to pick up a couple of wins? I think a lot of it goes back to what Rich Rod has been talking about for much of the season, and that's simplifying things.

He went in depth on his radio show Monday night on why that's important, although it was focused on college football as a whole, rather than the situation with his defense in particular.

"If you look across college football, there's more coaches getting fired and assistants getting fired, and coordinators getting fired before the season is even over. And usually, it's not because the coach is not trying hard or not working hard; he might just be doing too much. And not too much from a work standpoint, but too much from a schematical standpoint. It's all worked before, but maybe it's all worked before because you had guys that grew up in your system and they knew what was coming next. Right now, you got a bunch of new freshmen, and they ain't getting it. I still think the game comes down more to fundamentals and playing really hard and playing with passion before that other part takes precedence. That's my job, and it's our job to make sure that our coaches and our players understand that. I'm not trying to be the smartest guy in the room. I just want to be the best in the room. I don't want to have to worry about a player that says, 'I can play 25 different coverages.' No, I want you to be able to play one or two really good. That would be helpful."

You see it every week in college football, where teams are clearly trying to outsmart their opponent with exotic looks defensively or use a heavy dose of eye candy offensively, and it backfires. Every team has a bunch of newcomers, and as Rich Rod stated, they're not getting it. This is part of the problem with guys being able to transfer as many times as they choose without penalty — there's no development or familiarity with the systems they are in. This is why simplifying things as much as possible is extremely important.

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