Camp is Underway
August 10, 2004 11:59 AM | General
August 10, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The lofty preseason praise hasn’t had much of an impact on West Virginia University coach Rich Rodriguez. The fourth-year mentor said his team’s first practice of fall camp was so-so.
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| Coach Rich Rodriguez reacts to a play during Monday's first practice of fall camp (All-Pro Photography) |
“It was an average day,” he said following Monday’s mid-afternoon workout. “The execution didn’t seem to be too bad for our first practice but I was a little disappointed in the end that we didn’t finish as strong as we started. Maybe that is because they were working pretty hard when we started.”
By and large the coach was pleased with the conditioning of his team. “The majority of them I’m pleased with,” he said. “There is a handful that I’m disappointed with and we’ll deal with them directly over the next couple of weeks.”
The first day of fall practice featured the return of right offensive tackle Tim Brown, who missed the entire 2003 campaign with an Achilles tendon injury.
“Tim worked out okay,” said the coach. “He’s probably a little gassed: it’s the first time in a long time he’s worked like this and we worked pretty hard during practice and he got a little tired at the end. I don’t worry about those offensive linemen at all knowing the way they work in practice. I know Coach Trickett will have them ready.”
One player not available is sophomore running back Erick Phillips, who was on the sidelines still recovering from knee surgery last year.
“His recovery from knee surgery has taken a little longer than we expected,” said Rodriguez. “We hope he can still play and get into the mix sometime in September but right now he’s a ways off. He can help us if he can get healthy because he’s a good football player.”
Rodriguez says the bulk of the running game will fall on the shoulders of Kay-Jay Harris, Jason Colson and Bryan Wright. He says all three will get a close look this fall.
“Kay-Jay hasn’t earned the starting job yet,” he said. “Everybody wants to hand him the mantle. He’s worked pretty hard; I’m proud of him. He’s going to get the first crack but he’s got to beat out Colson and Bryan Wright and some of those young guys to be the guy. I hope he can do it because he’s a talented guy and he’s a senior and it’s his last shot.”
The coach indicated on Monday that he might be inclined to use quarterback Rasheed Marshall a little more in the running game this year as well. Marshall set a Big East record for quarterback rushing yards as a sophomore in 2002.
“We have a little more depth at quarterback, especially with Charles Hales there so we’ll run Rasheed a little more and I think that will really help him certainly as an individual player,” he said.
Overall, the coach believes his team has handled the lofty preseason expectation so far but maintains there is still a long way to go.
“Let’s see how the rest of the camp goes. It’s easy the first day of practice,” he said. “Wait until we get the pads and then they’ve got to wake up at 6 o’clock and be ready to do it again during two-a-days. We’ll see how they handle that part.”
West Virginia resumes practice Tuesday afternoon and will have single afternoon workouts for the remainder of the week before starting two-a-days Monday morning.
Random Camp Notes:
“He hasn’t hit in a while and that is going to be one of the tests of camp. Is he ready? As far as the shoulder issue he should be healed and hopefully he’ll make it through camp and through the season. Once our medical people clear them then they’re full-go and I really don’t think twice about it. He’s a frontrunner; he’s an experienced and talented guy. Somebody is clearly going to have to beat him out.”
“I’d be a hypocrite if I told the players to get better every year and as a staff we don’t,” he said. “Our staff is better this year than it was last year and we’ve got to keep getting better. There are things I learn every year and really I learn something every day. I feel confident our staff will get these guys ready and we’ll have a good plan for East Carolina come September 4th.”
