Rodriguez confident despite rocky Big 12 start
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MORGANTOWN -- Rich Rodriguez has been there before -- granted a quarter of a century ago, back as the 1900s gave way to the 2000s and he was named Don Nehlen’s successor as West Virginia’s head coach.
You might remember, he walked into a cauldron that was bubbling over with anticipation, but caught with his own unique system that needed to be developed with players who did not fit the mold into which he would cast his team. The first year was a 3-8 disaster that would have heated up today’s internet with much speculation.
But there was one thing that took place that you never would have believed if you were told it was to happen: Rodriguez’s team scored 30 or more points in a game twice that year, setting a standard that is difficult to believe. As the Mountaineers grew in strength and reputation, they had more and more games in which the offense scored 30 or more and the defense made sure it was enough.
Thirty was something of a magic number and by the time 2006 came around Rodriguez had won 34 straight games in which they had scored 30 or points until Louisville, then the No. 5 team in the country, beat them 44-34, the only game in which the Mountaineers scored 30 or more during his run.Rodriguez would finish up 43-1 in such games before exiting following the Pitt defeat.
We bring this up now because it is the second year and it appears the offense might just be good enough to score 30 points on numerous occasions, but unless you’ve been out hunting elk in the wilds of Montana you know that the defense has crashed on takeoff, and over the past two weeks given up just about 1,200 yards and 86 points in losses to Oklahoma State and Iowa State.
Defensive coordinator Zac Alley did not hold back in characterizing the group as not that hard this week. “I think we’re the worst defense in college football. So, it’s pretty simple to say that it ain’t f—— worked. So, I don’t plan to keep doing the same thing over and over again. That seems like insanity. We’ll cut it down and make sure they can execute.”
Rodriguez says there will be no panic, that there is a plan in place and that the understand the right approach, but things are different today than it was when that first year turned into the second.
“We look at everything, who you are playing, how they are playing, what you asking them to do,” he said, as preparations for Saturday’s noon game against Arizona began. “I think you do that whether you are playing well or are playing poorly. I think you make a mistake if you have a decent game and don’t evaluate all aspects if it.
“Like on offense, don’t think we aren’t evaluating that. Are we playing the right guys? Are we doing the right thing? That’s an every week conversation. I just think it’s brought to the forefront by how poorly we’re playing on defense. That’s always going to be brought up, and I’m talking about inside noise, not outside noise.”
In other words, the fans may boo and the Internet may scream “Off with his head” but Rodriguez maintains he oversees it all and that while he leans toward the offense with his involvement, he’s got the on/off switch on the defense, too.
“I’m the CEO of the program, but I’m not the kind that’s going ‘Y’all fix it and y’all tell me when you fix it.’ I want to know the answer every day.”
Still, he understands that’s a staff and works best as such rather than Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
“I’m going to be hovering but not hovering so much they can’t breath. That’s when you have to meet more often and I want everybody -- and I’m talking about offensive and defensive coaches to collaborate more often so we’re able to grow. That’s part of the deal.”
In fact, in those times that try men’s souls as an English-American writer and philosopher once put it, Rodriguez said, “I think you grow as a coach when times are good but you grow even more in times that are not so good. That’s kind of the measure of a coach, who grows through the tougher times and gets through the mess.”
With more than 80 new players in each of the classes during Rodriguez’s first two years, the approach could not echo that which he took when he replaced Nehlen.
“The biggest difference now, and this is not just us, it’s just the turnover in rosters is so different now. I always say you have to be a development program but a year like last year and year like this year where there’s so much turnover and you are replacing 10 starters or whatever it is, your system has to be able to adapt to that quicker.
“You’re not having guys grow up in your program now. I was talking to someone in the program the other day about it, after three or four years in the program the guys are developing and becomes almost like a coach. He kind of knows what’s going on and how to fix it. It’s almost like each and every one of them is like freshmen, even they are not all freshmen.
“I think that’s probably the biggest change and we, as coaches, have to learn to adapt to that. On purpose, we did not sign as many ‘last year’ guys this year (transfer portal juniors or seniors) as we did last year. We felt we had to keep that in mind, that we wanted guys we could have two or three years. But, if you pick a guy, you have to be able to pay to retain him, but we also have to develop him.
“I’m not discouraged because I know the guys will keep getting better every year; not only physically but mentally in our schemes.”
Think of what it has to be when the new year starts as did this year, coach’s looking all those new faces and then looking at each other and if not saying it outwardly, then thinking internally, ‘Man, we got to start all over again.’
“You understand they might be 20 years old but they’ve been in the system less than a year, if that makes sense.”
Now Arizona is on the horizon and Rodriguez believes it is the best team they have faced to date, so it won’t be easy, but he’s been around the track enough to know that you learn more and more during each lapse until one day you turn for home and know how to get there on your own.