Rich Rodriguez Pushes Back on the Idea That WVU is Far Behind UCF in its Rebuild

Not every program in the first year of a new coaching staff is going through what Rich Rodriguez and West Virginia are currently going through. Yes, others had a massive roster turnover like the Mountaineers, but the laundry list of injuries WVU has suffered makes the situation a million times worse.

Last week was an opportunity for WVU to get back on track against a team in UCF that's in a similar situation, to some degree. It's easy to look at the two and think they're comparable, but they're really not. That's why, when Rodriguez was asked if last week's result was an indication of how much further WVY is behind UCF, he dismissed it immediately.

"No, and you're leading down a negative way, which is the exact problem that you have. No, I'm just telling you. I know where you're leading, and that's the problem. It's like, oh gosh, they're struggling, we're struggling. They're first year, we're first year. Yeah, we played awful, and they played better. We've got a lot of things to fix, but I'm not going to look at it in totality and say that we can't fix our problems and that we're that far behind them. You can think that way, but I'm not, and our players won't."

Sure, UCF's quarterback was slightly banged up, but it was his non-throwing shoulder. Meanwhile, Nicco Marchiol is unable to run, Jaylen Henderson has been out for multiple weeks, Max Brown was unavailable, and Khalil Wilkins took a big shot at the end of the game that has his status in doubt for this Saturday's game.

UCF had its two running backs available, whereas WVU was without its top three, if you want to include Jaylan Knighton in that mix. Not to mention, they're also without wide receiver Jaden Bray, which means all of the attention is on Cam Vaughn for opposing defenses.

There are some areas of the roster, such as the offensive line and secondary, that can be criticized because they've been, in large part, the same group all year, and they've continued to struggle. But it's not like that in every area of the roster. Yes, injuries are a part of the game, but WVU has experienced them to the extreme.

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