The Numbers a Rich Rod-Rick Trickett Offense Put Up Are...Staggering, to Say the Least

A preview of what's to come with Rick Trickett back in Morgantown.

WVU Athletics Communications

Bread and butter, spaghetti and meatballs, coffee and donuts, Rich Rodriguez and Rick Trickett — things that are just better together.

This offseason, Rich Rod made a coaching change, bringing back Rick Trickett, whom he has worked with for nine seasons and has produced insanely good results. Trickett could have come back to Morgantown a year ago, but wanted to coach alongside his son, Clint, at Jacksonville State, who is now the offensive coordinator at Maryland.

Now, the dynamic duo is back together with the hopes of getting WVU back to its bread and butter of running the football and producing one of the top offenses in the entire country.

Speaking of those insanely good results, my co-host of In the Gun, Jed Drenning, dug up these numbers which will grab your attention.

Winning percentage: .693
Yards per attempt: 5.3
Wins per season: 8.6
Rush attempts per season: 590
Rush yards per season: 3,111
Rushing TDs per season: 34
Rushing attempts per game: 48
Rushing yards per game: 252
Rushing TDs per game: 2.7

The secret recipe

WVU Athletics Communications

You don't do something for as long as Trickett has coached offensive lines if you're not good at it. He demands excellence from his players, mostly with their technique. Being strong and consistent in that area can overcome a player's deficiencies, be it arm length, strength, lateral quickness, etc. Preaching technique and calling out mistakes on the spot is what has led to his success as a coach, churning out several high-level college players, some of whom became NFL draft picks.

The addition of Trickett on top of all the new pieces that make up the offensive line room has completely changed the identity of this offense overnight. Rodriguez noticed the difference in the spring and has been giddy about the potential of this offense with a well-oiled machine up front paving the way.

“Yeah, I mean, I think we’re going to be better up front. Second year for some of the guys in the system. Coach (Rick) Trickett has been in the system for a long time, so he’s really comfortable at teaching what we want. Some of the new guys we got, we certainly think are making an impact. We got a couple really good freshmen that’ll be ready, I think, and then we got some transfers that are grown men.”

As I mentioned in our offensive line preview the other day, they could be 10 or 11 deep up front. Obviously, the rotation will be somewhere between seven and nine, but I think they'd feel more comfortable with No. 10 or 11 than some of the top five or six guys they had a year ago.