Rich Rodriguez Recaps the Good and Bad from WVU's Second Live Scrimmage

West Virginia's second, and arguably most important, scrimmage of fall camp is now in the books. Moments ago, head coach Rich Rodriguez spoke with the media to discuss how it went and what's next for this team.

Opening statement

“Just finished the scrimmage. Not quite as long as last Saturday’s. Probably got about 80 plays in and played a lot of the younger guys, just to try to get some good film to evaluate them on. Had a few unforced errors with penalties, which we’ve got to get corrected. Defense, I think, played pretty well for the most part. Some of the young guys gave up a couple big plays, but the effort seemed to be good. We’re going to have some long meetings tomorrow with the coaches and kind of figure out where we’re at and then make our plans for next week accordingly.”

What the defense has impressed him with

“The defensive staff’s doing a great job. We’ve got to make sure we don’t forget the fundamental part of it, but they’re doing a lot of stuff — a lot more than you would expect in the first year, first couple weeks. That’s part of our plan defensively is a lot of different looks, a lot of different things, and it can be a lot for a young guy or a new guy, but our guys have done a good job with it. The multiplicity of our defense is really unique, more so than most teams. I would be worried about it and pull back the reins if I saw us making a bunch of big mental mistakes in practice, but I don’t see that. They’ve handled it pretty well.”

Overall thoughts on the scrimmage

“It was good and bad. The start of it, we had a couple penalties and unforced errors on offense, that was really frustrating. I don’t know why we have that. Receivers not lining up right in formation, there’s no excuse for that. That happened twice. Offensive line…I yelled at the official because an offensive lineman was lined up in the backfield, and I’m like, ‘Don’t we get a warning?’ And he did warn him, so that’s like double bad. They warned you, and you still did it wrong. That kind of stuff should never happen.”

If review of the scrimmage could change practice plans for next week

“The total practice structure will probably stay the same, but what we feature, what we’ve got to hone in on, who we’re going to hone in with — all that we’ll do. Monday and Tuesday are going to be truly full days to try to get some semblance of getting ready for a game.”

When he's going to have to start limiting reps

“By next Wednesday, when school starts, you can’t get 50-60 on offense and defense ready to play a game. That’s just too many people. You only have so many hours a day. By next Wednesday or Thursday, we’re going to start having ‘scout teams,’ and I’ll explain that to the team and the importance of being in that role, and just because you start on the scout team, doesn’t mean you’ll be there all year. It might just be the first week or two.”

If he has to have a QB1 by the opener or if he’s fine playing multiple guys

“If you had a guy clearly separate and you’re like, ‘He’s it!’ I would maybe know that myself, but I wouldn’t…there’s no reason for me to say that. And there’s really no reason for me to really include anybody else in that other than Rhett. It may happen, it may not happen. In my mind, I would kind of think I know where we’re at, but we’ll watch today’s practice, and I’m really going to have to evaluate all week what our true order is because again, you can only play one at a time. I have an idea where they’re at right now, and I’m seeing if somebody will separate in the next six, seven days.”