West Virginia football coach Rich Rodriguez said on Apr. 7 that he is simplifying the team’s approach during the final spring practices to better evaluate his players ahead of the Gold-Blue Spring Festival scheduled for April 18.
Rodriguez said he wants to reduce the number of plays and schemes so coaches can more clearly assess each player’s abilities. “I’m forcing the coaches to hone down the playlist, so to speak, because we’ve got to evaluate our guys,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve got a few more practices this spring to evaluate what we have, and I want our guys to show their true selves because we don’t have 3,000 play calls on offense or defense.”
The coach explained that dividing players equally for individual and team drills will help determine who can excel in open-field situations, tackle effectively, win one-on-one battles, and protect against pass rushes without extra help. He believes focusing on fundamental football will provide a clearer picture before summer training begins.
“We’ve got to do more to tell,” Rodriguez said. “We went live for maybe 15-20 minutes (Monday), and we’ll do the same thing Wednesday. We’ve got to evaluate some of that, but I don’t know if that’s so much about coaching. We try and coach what coaches can make an impact on, but natural ability should show up.” He also noted that defensive evaluations include assessing whether players can pressure quarterbacks without complex blitz packages: “I don’t want to rely on schemes to get sacks… You see all of the good teams in our league, or teams in the playoffs, and they all have dudes who can pass rush.”
Rodriguez reported progress at quarterback and offensive line positions while highlighting improvements among wide receivers despite only three returning players out of fifteen total. Senior Jaden Bray brings experience while transfer Prince Strachan adds size not seen since former Mountaineers David Sills V and Gary Jennings Jr.
On defense, Rodriguez described his linebackers and secondary as longer and more athletic than last year but declined identifying specific strengths or weaknesses at this stage: “There hasn’t been one glaring weakness where you go ‘Oh my gosh we’re in trouble there’ – which would be bad because there is not another portal period… Whatever issues we have, we believe we can fix over time.”
Looking ahead, Rodriguez emphasized competition across positions remains close as practice continues Wednesday afternoon: “If you are good enough to win with you’ll play… If there are three guys at one position that are good enough to win with we’ll play all three guys… I think our guys are seeing that now.”
