Rich Rodriguez Defends Strength Staff, Calls Injuries '100 Percent Bad Luck'

The depth on West Virginia's roster was already a major question mark heading into the 2025 season, but a never-ending list of injuries has forced many of those backups, third-stringers, and in some cases, fourth and fifth stringers into roles they probably weren't ready for.

The Mountaineers have seen injuries to each of their top four quarterbacks, top two running backs, No. 2 receiver, and a handful of guys on the defensive side, two of which are out for the season — LB Ashton Woods and S Jordan Walker.

Because of the number of injuries WVU has suffered this season, it has created a concern through parts of the fan base that the strength and conditioning staff needs tweaked or that they need to tweak their process.

A fan texted a question into Rodriguez's radio show Monday night, asking that very question.

"That's a fair question because that's the first thing we look at — are we doing something or something we need to look at in the strength room? I evaluate everything, and I evaluate what we do in the strength and conditioning, and I think it's just 100% bad luck," Rodriguez said. "I really like what our strength staff is doing. Our medical staff is top-notch. I don't even get into that; they know what they're doing, and they tell me who can go, who can't go. But our strength staff, I like to stay involved with what we're doing and how we're doing it. I've studied other strength and conditioning programs too, and I think our guys are doing a great job. It's just, you look at how our quarterbacks got hurt — freak things. Nicco's, I guess, was hurt from before. I don't know when. Jordan Walker breaks his arm, just bad luck. If we were getting a lot of soft tissue injuries, hamstrings, a pulled this muscle, a pulled that muscle, then you start thinking, okay, either our warmup thing ain't right or something like that. But these are just freak stuff and nothing you could do in the weight room to prevent it.

Mike Joseph has been in charge of the strength and conditioning team at WVU since 2008, meaning he's stayed on throughout multiple coaching changes, having worked for Bill Stewart, Dana Holgorsen, Neal Brown, and now Rodriguez. Former players have voiced their support and gratitude for Joseph over the years and believe he is one of the best in the business.

Rodriguez did note that he wants to mirror some of what the NFL does when evaluating players for the draft to better prepare them if that opportunity arises, but also to have a better understanding of where players are in their development.

"Now, all that said, we all know and we've challenged our players, we've got to get bigger and stronger. What a kicker or quarterback bench presses, who cares? But all these other positions, what they test at the combine in the NFL, we need to test. And if we're going to test it, we need to work it. I want to know what every player on the team, other than the specialists, I want to know what they bench press. I want to know what they squat. They test 40-yard dash times, they check height and weight, and all that stuff. So if it's done at the combine, it needs to be done here. We're doing that now, but I think it's the first time we've done it in a while. I want our guys, if they get an opportunity to go to the combine and they sit on the bench press, I don't want a lineman in there and he can't put it up 20 times. That's a bad reflection on us. I want him to be one of the top guys doing that deal."

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