Football Notebook
November 30, 2005 07:05 PM | General
November 30, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Quality and not quantity is Rich Rodriguez’ recruiting objective when his coaches are finally free to hit the road following Saturday night’s season-ending game against South Florida.
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| West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez says his coaching staff will have to play a little catch up in recruiting after this Saturday's game against South Florida.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“We don’t have a huge senior class but we lose a couple of offensive linemen, we lose a lot of guys in the secondary, and we’re still looking for a couple of wide receivers,” Rodriguez said Tuesday. “We’re trying to get the best of the best like any coach will do, but with a small recruiting class that we’re going to sign -- somewhere between maybe 10-14 -- we’re filling by need but also with the best possible student-athletes that we can get.”
According to Rodriguez, the response from prospects has been encouraging despite a small number of commitments his coaches have collected to date.
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Rodriguez said. “The success of this year’s team and being on TV quite a bit … the response has been outstanding.”
Because West Virginia’s regular season has been extended an extra week, Rodriguez and his staff will have to try and squeeze some recruiting time in between bowl-game preparation.
“We’re basically missing a week of recruiting right now because we’ve got this game to get ready for and then the bowl and all that,” he said. “We’ve got to scramble. Right after the game my staff will be on the road, including myself, and go out recruiting.”
Because West Virginia has been successful this year and will be one of eight teams playing in a BCS game, Rodriguez admits that will help him make up any ground he may have lost when he goes into young men’s homes.
“Winning games in certain areas helps you in recruiting but I don’t know if it is the deciding factor. I think a lot of guys are more interested in getting into the right fit,” Rodriguez said. “If I’m a high school guy I’d think you want to go to a place where you have a chance to develop athletically, academically and socially and go to a place where you can have some success.
“Guys like going to bowl games,” Rodriguez mentioned. “The one benefit with a bowl game is that they get nice gifts legally. They get exposure and they get to go to nice cities.”
As is the case with any 17 or 18-year-old prospect, Rodriguez says some of the least heralded recruits can sometimes turn out to be the best college players.
“There were a lot of guys that we’ve gotten that weren’t highly recruited,” he said. “In fact, when (cornerback) Anthony Mims gave his senior talk the night before the last game, he talked a little bit about his experience recruiting. He was way out in California and he said his only other offer was Utah State. I didn’t realize that was who we had to beat to get him – not that Utah State is bad or anything.
“There are a lot of stories out there of guys that weren’t highly recruited and came here,” Rodriguez said. “There are a lot of guys making an impact for us. That’s part evaluation and part West Virginia. Throughout the years the history of our program has been doing a good job of developing players into having success at this level.”
Briefly:
“When UConn got their last first down with 1:30 and all they had to do was take a knee, (Rodriguez' son) Rhett was yelling at the TV, ‘Just take a knee!’ They handed the ball off twice and Rhett was like, ‘What are you doing?’ I was pretty proud of him being just seven years old,” Rodriguez laughed. “He understands that you can run the clock out with 1:30 to go.”
“Not only have they not been behind at home but it hasn’t even been close,” Rodriguez said.
“The guys had a couple of days off this weekend so they were re-energized. We have talked at length about the importance of this game and how to finish strong,” Rodriguez said. “The guys have been pretty focused.”
“It’s not a big issue because from what I understand it is good grass field and you expect that with an NFL stadium,” said Rodriguez adding, “whatever the conditions are there, there is a pretty good chance that it will be better than our last game.”
“Without looking it up, I don’t know how many teams at West Virginia have won 10 games during the regular season but I don’t think it’s been too many. That’s why I want their focus,” Rodriguez said.
“We’ve kind of reviewed what we did then. Offensively they’ve been running the football more than they did in the games prior to this so it’s almost like starting over,” he said.
“There are going to be 200-some Division I players sign out of the state of Florida. They’re right in the middle of it,” Rodriguez said. “They’re going to be able to find the majority of their roster from within an hour or two of they’re campus. If that’s the situation and you add a good coach and a commitment from the school, you can build pretty quickly.
“What happened to Central Florida?” Rodriguez asked. “They were down and out and didn’t win a game last year and all of the sudden they flipped it around. Coach (George) O’Leary and his staff got some good players and coached them up and boom, they’re playing for the championship of Conference USA.”
