Sonny Dykes was Very Complimentary of Rich Rodriguez and WVU

The West Virginia Mountaineers (2-5, 0-4) welcome the TCU Horned Frogs (5-2, 2-2) for homecoming weekend Saturday evening. Kickoff is set for 6:00 p.m. EST and the action will stream on ESPN+

TCU head coach Sonny Dykes addressed the Mountaineers during his weekly press conference.

What makes West Virgina a tough environment to play in?

I think it’s a different team at home than they are on the road. If you look, they play really, really hard.

They have a great fan base, a passionate fan base. I think it brings the best in their players.

It’s loud and they just have a great tradition of doing that, that goes way back many, many years and it’s been consistent, really regardless of who the coaches were.

Obviously, Rich Rodriguez was a big part of their success his first tenure there. They had great teams that were on the verge of playing for a national championship before and had really, really good football teams. And he understands the culture there and he understands the passionate fanbase – there’s nobody understands West Virginia football probably better than Rich does. And his teams are going to be tough, and I think they fit profile for what their fans like and appreciate.

They’ve had good football teams in there. They’re extra passionate and they play extra hard and extra physical at home, and they’ve just been a difficult team to handle in years past at home.

The win against Pittsburgh this year at home was a huge win, obviously. Those guys played really, really hard, played passionate and did great job of finding a way to win a football game.

Dykes applauds the WVU offensive line

The guys are tough, they’re physical, they finish, they play with an edge. That’s been something, again, is part of their tradition and part what makes them special and unique.

Rich is the guys that makes sense there because there’s no one that understands running the football better than he does and all the little subtleties of it and adjustments that are made in game to stay ahead of what you’re doing. There’s always a cat and mouse game when you are playing him. They have all these little nuances. They do things that are a little bit different than some people the ways the do it, it gives you problems. And as you adjust, they adjust, and they try and stay one step ahead of you and they do a really good job of doing that.

Thoughts on West Virginia’s 0-4 start in Big 12 play

I think youth and inconsistency at quarterback, just in terms of having enough healthy bodies. Its hard to win in our league without a quarterback and a guy that’s been healthy and can get the reps and get better and improve as his play goes along. You look at the league and the teams that wins it, normally they have really, really good quarterback play. Its somebody that has a lot of snaps and who makes good decisions and takes care of the football and all the stuff winning quarterbacks do. I think that’s been probably the issue – the fact they’re a little bit banged up.