Football Notebook
November 17, 2004 12:12 PM | General
November 17, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Special teams play remained the predominant topic of conversation during Rich Rodriguez’ Tuesday afternoon press conference at Milan Puskar Stadium.
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| Coach Rich Rodriguez says Pac-Man Jones played at a champion level last Saturday against Boston College.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
The Mountaineers gave up two punt returns for touchdowns, fumbled a kickoff that resulted in a field goal and surrendered 230 return yards in a 36-17 loss to Boston College last Saturday.
“We won’t totally revamp the schemes,” said Rodriguez. “We’ll tweak some things here and there to help some guys. If we simply can’t get there because of a lack of speed or athleticism then we’ve got to do a little something to help them. There are always a few things you can do to help yourself. Unfortunately you can’t help the kicks. We’ve got to kick it better. You can’t have a kickoff with less than four seconds of hang time and it goes to the 15 or 20-yard line and expect your guys to cover it.”
The coach vows to work extra hard on that phase of the game this week to try and get all of the mistakes corrected.
“We’re going to have the open tryouts again and see if we can line drive kick it and sky kick it,” he said. “We’ve done that really the last three weeks. Unfortunately on one or two of the kicks one guy went to the wrong lane and then next time it was a different guy. It wasn’t the same guy all the time. If it was we would have put someone else in there.
“We probably need faster guys (covering),” he continued. “The guys that were running down there weren’t getting off blocks. If you’re too slow you’re not going to tackle them and if you’re too light they’re going to run over you. I’d like them to at least run over us and we can hang on. Lack of speed is hurting us.”
Despite the disappointment of losing to Boston College, the coach said there were some positives that came out of the game.
“Defensively in the second half, even though they weren’t on the field a lot, they played better,” Rodriguez said. “We had a couple of guys defensively who played pretty well. I thought Pac-Man Jones played pretty well. He played a good enough game to earn a champion.
“Offensively, I thought our offensive line played pretty well against a pretty good run defense. I thought our backs ran hard. The tight ends played pretty well so there were some positives from that game. We just had no chance to win that game because of special teams. It never gave us a chance to win that ball game and that’s unfortunate,” he said.
One particular play by Pac-Man Jones stood out Saturday when he literally ran 50 yards across the field to pull down a scrambling Paul Peterson.
“It was a great play by him and a disappointing play for me to watch because I’m thinking, where are the other 10 guys? It was almost as if he was the only one seeing the ball and getting the ball on that play.
“When you were watching the film it wasn’t guys just loafing around … they just couldn’t get there. I think at that time Coach Casteel glanced at me and kind of shrugged his shoulders a little bit and said, ‘I feel your pain.’ But we picked it up after that,” Rodriguez said.
The coach says it is now imperative for his team to turn their focus completely on a rejuvenated and streaking Pitt team coming off an impressive victory at Notre Dame and having also won recently at home in overtime against Boston College.
“Pitt was always it as far as the biggest rivalry,” Rodriguez said. “It has been a longstanding tradition. We’re close to each other; we recruit a lot of the same areas and I think there is an intensity between our fans and their fans that’s high-pitched every time we play. I think it carries over to the players and we’ll feel it next Thursday night. It should be fun.”
Rodriguez believes West Virginia is catching the Panthers at the wrong time simply because first-year starting quarterback Tyler Palko is beginning to hit his stride. He completed 26 of 42 passes for 324 yards and five touchdowns without throwing an interception in a 41-38 win over Notre Dame. Palko has now completed 57.8 percent of his pass attempts for 2,240 yards and 18 touchdowns in nine games.
“If you’re going to play a new starter you want to play him at the beginning of the year, not the end of the year,” Rodriguez said. “Everybody in the country was trying to recruit him, us included, and you can tell he’s a coach’s son. He understands the schemes and he’s a great leader. To me he’s carrying that offense. They revolve offensively around Tyler Palko and they should because he’s making great decisions and he’s accurate. He’s all the things you look for in a quarterback and I think he’s done a tremendous job for them.”
The tough part in defending Palko, according to Rodriguez, is that he’s a legitimate threat to run the ball as well.
“The thing you have to prepare for is a guy that is going to scramble … a guy that will scramble to run and a guy that will scramble to throw,” Rodriguez said. “Walter Washington would scramble to run and Paul Peterson would scramble to throw. Tyler Palko will do both so you’ve got to be a little more disciplined with Palko.”
Rodriguez says that despite losing the inside track on a BCS bowl berth there are plenty of team goals still attainable next Thursday night.
“I will be very, very disappointed if our energy level and focus for the Pitt game isn’t great considering there is a tremendous amount at stake. Who knows, you still have got a chance to win the Big East championship and still get a BCS berth, though you’ve got to have someone else help you out. You still have a chance to finish in the Top 20 and beat your rival. There’s a whole lot there,” he said.
Briefly:
“We’ve got to get back to work,” Rodriguez said.
