Football Notebook
August 01, 2005 11:21 AM | General
August 1, 2005
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| Rodriguez |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University football coach Rich Rodriguez admits his staff will be preparing for a lot of ghosts when his team takes on Syracuse in the 2005 season opener in the Carrier Dome on Sunday, Sept. 4. The game will be played nationally on ABC.
Syracuse fired veteran coach Paul Pasqualoni following its embarrassing bowl-game loss to Georgia Tech and brought in Greg Robinson, a long-time defensive coach with 14 years of NFL experience. Most recently Robinson was co-defensive coordinator on Mack Brown’s Texas staff, but also spent time running NFL defenses with the New York Jets, Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs from 1990 to 2003. He will serve as Syracuse’s defensive coordinator in addition to his head coaching duties.
“We’ve tried to prepare based on where Coach Robinson and some of his staff members have been in the past,” said Rodriguez. “We’re trying to get the best guess that we can.”
While in the NFL, Robinson developed a reputation for having tough and aggressive defenses aimed at putting pressure on the quarterback. In 2003, Robinson’s Kansas City defense produced 36 sacks, 25 interceptions and 37 total turnovers to lead the NFL in turnover margin. Robinson also transformed a Denver Broncos defense that was ranked last in the NFL in 1994 into a two-time Super Bowl winner in 1997 and 1998.
Robinson’s defensive coaching staff consists of former Ohio University assistant Steve Russ (linebackers), Northeastern assistant head coach Jim Salgado (secondary), and Texas support staff members Tim Cross (defensive line) and Scott Spencer (safeties). Spencer was a graduate assistant while Cross was an assistant strength coach.
With Robinson running the defense, the offense is solely in the hands of offensive coordinator Brian Pariani, who also coaches the Syracuse tight ends.
Pariani worked with Robinson while the two were at Denver -- Pariani having spent the last 10 years with the Broncos. Prior to that, Pariani was an offensive assistant with the San Francisco 49ers for four years from 1991-94. Pariani’s on-field coaching duties have been primarily in the NFL, although he did spend one year on UCLA’s staff as a graduate assistant in 1989.
Pariani’s help comes from quarterbacks coach Major Applewhite, a former Texas quarterback; Chris White, a Syracuse holdover who will coach the tight ends; former Arizona Cardinals offensive line coach Bob Wylie; and running backs coach Desmond Robinson, whose 23-year coaching career includes two stops at West Virginia on Don Nehlen’s staff in 1988 and 1995.
This is Greg Robinson’s first head coaching assignment at any level; none of Robinson’s assistant coaches have been college head coaches.
“The hardest part is that we’ve got to be ready to adjust because they may come out with something that they have not done (previously under Pasqualoni),” said Rodriguez. “It’s a whole new staff and that makes it a little more difficult. We’ve got to make sure we’re sound with what we’re doing and then be simple enough so that we can adjust if we need to.”
Because Syracuse is working with the advantage of West Virginia being in the dark, Rodriguez has decided to restrict media and fan access to his team’s practices. Rodriguez admits there will be a lot more instruction going on this fall in order to get a young football team ready for a tough season-opening game.
“We’ve got to teach a lot of fundamentals and at the same time we’ve got to be ready for a big conference game on the fourth,” he said. “You want to spend as much time on fundamentals as you can but you’ve also got an important game in less than a month with no preseason scrimmages.”
Rodriguez says the team’s scrimmages this fall will be geared specifically to things they believe Syracuse will do on both offense and defense.
“We’ve got to start that early,” Rodriguez said.
In the past Rodriguez has opened up his practices, but he believes this fall a young and inexperienced football team would be better served with fewer distractions.
“We’re trying to get these young guys focused without any distractions and the game against Syracuse being such a big thing off the bat, as much as we can withhold from them it may help us get one first down or something like that,” he said.
Rodriguez says he’s most concerned about non-traditional media members having access to practice.
“If I open it up then some guy may come in and say he’s a reporter for this and this and the next thing you know he’s got on the Internet that this guy is playing here and that guy is playing there; they’re running this play and that play,” he said.
Briefly:
“Based on the spring and the depth we have coming back, I think our secondary should be solid,” he said. “I think we’ll have more guys up front on D-line that have experience and can give us some quality depth there. I think those are two positions that we probably have a little more depth than others.
“The tailback position has a chance of being very deep but I haven’t seen the young guys in practice yet, so I don’t know how fast they will learn.”
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| Rich Rodriguez is hoping a healthy Brandon Myles will make a difference in the WVU receiver corps in 2004.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
Tate, a 6-foot-3-inch, 235-pound Mississippi product, appears to have the size and athletic ability to be a solid pass-catching target.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing them and the new guys,” admitted Rodriguez, who wasn’t enthralled with his wide receiver play in the spring. “Guys like Tate and Reynaud who had to sit out last year are eligible and ready to compete. That wide receiver position is really going to be interesting to watch from a coach’s standpoint to see who is going to emerge.”
Rodriguez says holdover Brandon Myles is healthy again after struggling through spring drills with nagging injuries. Myles is the most experienced player returning in the wide receiver corps.
“He is in the best shape of his life, according to him,” said Rodriguez. “We’ll see how much easier it is for him to step out and be the guy now that he’s completely healthy.”
Rodriguez also isn’t ruling out immediate contributions from a large group of receivers arriving this fall. One of those newcomer candidates is sophomore walk-on Brandon Barrett, who sat out last year to concentrate academics. Barrett was a prep All-American at Martinsburg High School in 2003.
“I guess I’ve got to wait and see after a couple of practices,” he said. “You want to see a guy do it every day or at least on a consistent basis. I think we may have a few more playmakers there whether it’s a new guy or a returning guy that has gotten healthy and better.”
