Coach Rod Speak
July 28, 2004 09:43 PM | General
July 28, 2004
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| Rodriguez |
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Even though his football team was predicted to win the Big East this year, West Virginia football coach Rich Rodriguez went through a litany of things that his team must improve upon before the start of the season.
“We’ve got to get a better pass rush on defense and we’ve got to throw the ball better on offense. We’ve got to be better on our third down efficiency on both offense and defense: I can give you a whole list of things,” he said during Wednesday’s Big East media day activities at Giants Stadium. “We’ve got to play better against Maryland: we have not played well against them in four years.
“We started our meetings about a week ago and we’ve got two weeks of meetings from 8 to 5 and we could do two more weeks of discussing things that we’ve got to get better at,” he continued. “But we always review the past year and what we can correct and we have gotten better in a lot of areas each year.”
Those covering college football seem to agree. Most preseason publications have predicted a Top 25 finish for the Mountaineers this season.
“I think our program has continued to grow in the public’s eyes and it’s getting to the point where we’re expecting to have success every year and that’s what the good programs do. I’d rather it be that we’re expected to be good every year then the other way around,” he said.
With the departure of Miami and Virginia Tech to the ACC this year many are predicting a more wide open race for the Big East title. Rodriguez takes exception to that assertion.
“We keep hearing that the league is wide open now that Miami has left but it’s been wide open every year,” he said. “Everybody starts off zero and zero in the league and you see how it ends up.”
The coach says the biggest thing he has noticed right away is that more sportswriters have lingered around his table at this year’s press day.
“When we started doing this Big East media stuff Larry Coker would have about 40 guys at his table and I’d have one or two at mine and eventually a few more would filter over,” Rodriguez laughed. “Now there are more at mine so it’s going to be a little bit different from a public standpoint but our approach still hasn’t changed from year one.”
Rodriguez admits the league is in a rebuilding mode but believes the product that will ultimately be put out on the field will be stronger than most talking heads think.
“There are a lot of schools in our league right now that are under the radar,” he said. “There are some teams that haven’t gone to bowl games that are going to go to bowl games this year.”
Because the Big East is situated in the Northeast where the majority of the population resides, Rodriguez believes the conference will always be viable.
“There is a whole lot of population, there is a whole lot of media coverage and there are a whole lot of people who follow college football in this part of the country,” he said. “With the exception of Penn State, all the schools with interest at the highest level (in the Northeast) are here.”
The coach also likes the fact that the league must put forth its best effort over the next few seasons to maintain its BCS status.
“The fact that we have to prove ourselves as a league and as programs to keep our status … to me there’s nothing wrong with that,” he said. “Every BCS conference should have to do that. I have no problem with that and I’m sure the other coaches feel the same way as well.
“Perception wise, when you lose programs like Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College, people say, ‘Hey, you’re not going to be as strong as a league.’ That’s understandable because of all of the success they’ve had,” he added. “But watch what some of the new schools coming into the league do this year … watch what the UConns, the Rutgers and some of them that haven’t been to bowls recently do, then let’s judge the league as a whole after that.”
