Keeping One Step Ahead
July 31, 2003 02:37 PM | General
July 31, 2003
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University football coach Rich Rodriguez plans to tweak his high-powered offense this year to stay one step ahead of the opposition, he said Thursday afternoon at the Milan Puskar Center.
One area Rodriguez says he will pay close attention to is the passing game. Last year the Mountaineers passed for a respectable 1,753 yards, but that was less than half of West Virginia’s season rushing total of 3,687.
“Our passing game was too conservative,” said the coach. “It wouldn’t bother me to throw the ball 80 times a game or run it 80 times a game. But one of our keys is to be balanced … balanced used to mean to run it more. In our case we need to throw it more.”
As West Virginia started piling up staggering rushing totals, the Mountaineers began to face more eight and nine-man defensive fronts. Because of those adjustments, Rodriguez doesn’t think his offense will be able to maintain its staggering average of 283.6 yards per game produced last season on the ground.
“If we don’t have to (pass) we won’t, but I have a feeling we’re going to have to,” he said.
To keep things fresh and to make it harder on opposing defenses, Rodriguez began tinkering with formations and sets his first year at WVU. Last year the tinkering continued.
“We started it a little my first year and did it more last year,” he admitted. “The difference is we’ll be less open about it. Not that (opponents) can’t pick something up on film but five, six years ago I was probably too open with what I was doing.”
Northwestern was one of the teams that copied Rodriguez’s system, right down to the terminology and the signals.
“We’ve had to make adjustments in the way we signal, our verbiage and even in our schemes without losing the base,” said Rodriguez. “I don’t want to panic. A zone play is still a zone play. We’ll just make some adjustments to our zone play, particularly regarding the quarterback in reads and things that he does in the run game. We probably do more reads in the run game with the quarterback than maybe any team in America.
“That tends to make us a little more unique,” he added. “Some people do it but not to the extent that we do it.”
Although quarterback Rasheed Marshall bore the brunt of the criticism for West Virginia’s inconsistent passing game last year, Rodriguez says he’s not evaluated solely on how he reads coverages.
“Our guy has to be smart in the run game also,” said Rodriguez. “That is where I think Rasheed was probably underrated for the most part on how many good decisions he made in the run game last year.”
Although the coach admits some alterations are forthcoming, don’t expect West Virginia to go away from the shotgun formation.
“I’m a big shotgun guy,” Rodriguez said. “We’re in the shotgun less than I was 10 years ago but we’re still in the shotgun more than most teams in America. One reason why is the run game and the things it gives us in the run game. That makes us unique.”
Despite more teams around the country using some variation of his offense, according to Rodriguez, it is more common for schools to copy a good defensive scheme than it is to try and duplicate a good offense.
“If somebody runs a good defense everybody kind of copies it,” he said. “The only people running eight-man fronts used to be Virginia Tech and just a few others. Now we’re seeing a lot of variety, but its coming out of an eight-man base front.
“The movements, the stemming and the disguising are becoming the norm,” he continued. “So you’re practicing for the extreme and the extreme is kind of the norm.”
Rodriguez and his coaching staff have spent the last two weeks meeting about every aspect of the program. Next week they will apply all of their efforts when the entire team arrives for fall camp.
Unlike years past, freshmen will arrive at the same time the veterans come. Rodriguez says a handful of newcomers will get a close look, but he believes it will be very difficult for them to crack the two-deep.
“To expect a true freshman or a newcomer to contribute too much … he has to be at a position where he doesn’t have to think too much or you’re really hurting at that position,” the coach said.
The Mountaineers will conduct their first practice of fall camp on Monday afternoon.
