Football Notebook
October 22, 2006 08:44 PM | General
October 22, 2006
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Rich Rodriguez admits it is hard taking his coaching hat off when he watches college games on TV, particularly when he is viewing those teams he’s yet to face.
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| Patrick White ran for more than 100 yards for his second straight game, but he also passed for 156 yards and a TD against Connecticut on Friday night.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“If I’m watching teams we have already played then I watch as a fan but if I’m watching teams that we play you kind of analyze a little bit more,” he said. “You’re asking yourself, can they run that back? Can they show the replay again?”
On Saturday, Rodriguez found himself in that situation after his West Virginia team knocked off Connecticut Friday night, 37-11. After a few hours of sleep, the coach was up at 9 o’clock making recruiting calls before settling in front of the tube.
“I had a great day. I sat around all day watching TV with the wife and the kids. I got to watch Louisville play and that was an entertaining game,” Rodriguez said. “Then I watched Rutgers play Pitt and that was a classic Big East game as well. After that, I watched my buddy Tommy at Clemson light it up last night.
“I enjoyed yesterday.”
He may have enjoyed the day, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t taking down a few notes between plays.
“It’s a lot harder trying to pick up things on TV than it is on film because you don’t have the right angles,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez was impressed with the quality of play displayed by all four Big East teams he watched play on Saturday, particularly Rutgers and the way the Scarlet Knights performed defensively.
“I thought that was a hard-fought ball game and I thought both teams played extremely hard,” Rodriguez said. “I thought Rutgers defense looked very athletic and obviously with Ray Rice and Brian Leonard they’ve got some good players. If you watch those games you can see the teams in the Big East have gotten better and better each year and can play with anybody.”
Rodriguez also had a chance to break down his own team’s performance against the Huskies on his laptop computer.
“After watching the film I liked our guy’s focus, I liked their demeanor during the week and on the sidelines during the game,” he said. “I don’t think we executed at our best at all times – as coaches as well. There were a few play calls out there offensively. We should have had a few play calls that could have gotten big plays for us.”
Rodriguez said his team came out of the Connecticut game in pretty good shape health wise.
“We just have a few bumps and bruises,” he said. “We still have (Johnny) Dingle and (Pat) Liebig hobbling around with their ankle sprains right now.”
Safety Ridwan Malik also did not play with both hip and quad ailments.
“He’s still not 100 percent and he’s getting treatment so we’ll see where he’s at later in the week,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez fielded several questions Sunday afternoon about his team’s next opponent: No. 6-rated Louisville.
“We’re starting to get into the film a little bit,” he said. “Our players had yesterday and today off outside of treatments. Tomorrow the team will watch the UConn game and get that cleaned up a little bit. I don’t know how much we will get into Louisville tomorrow but by Tuesday will be into it with the players.”
From what he’s seen so far, Rodriguez is obviously impressed with the 7-0 Cardinals and how they have managed to keep things rolling without top tailback Michael Bush.
“They’re doing the same things,” he said. “Obviously Michael Bush is a great player and he does everything well but it hasn’t really slowed them down any.”
Most impressive, according to Rodriguez, is how Louisville coach Bobby Petrino has been able to build up quality depth in the short time he’s been there.
“They’ve done a nice job of building some depth,” Rodriguez said. “When they lost (Brian) Brohm, (Hunter) Cantwell came in there although he played at the end of last year and started for them in the bowl game. Behind Bush with (George) Stripling, (Kolby) Smith and those guys they all have experience. They have quality experience behind them.”
With a great deal being made about Louisville’s nationally ranked offense, Rodriguez says the Cardinal defense is equally talented.
“What has been overlooked is how well their defense has played and helped carry the way,” he said.
“They’ve got skill guys all the way around that are great, great players and then defensively they’ve got a lot of athletes,” Rodriguez said. “They are very fast and then they’ve got a great kicking game with (Art) Carmody. They’ve got a great program and they’ve showed it by the number of games they have won over the years.”
Briefly:
“I knew his dad when he was the head coach at Carroll College when I was at Glenville State when we played them in a playoff game way back when,” Rodriguez said. “I had a lot of respect for his father and he grew up as a coach’s son so he’s been around the game a long time.”
The younger Petrino is known for his ability to dissect defenses and call plays to exploit weaknesses, but Rodriguez says there is a lot more to his system than just great play calling.
“I think he knows how to fit what he does to the talent that he has,” Rodriguez said. “He’s a sharp offensive guy and he knows how to call plays. To me it’s not just calling plays but it’s also getting your guys to execute plays. They know how to execute plays and they know how to go about teaching it to their players. They have a lot of facets that make them tough to go up against.”
“We have the confidence not only in Pat White who can make all the throws but we also have a lot of confidence in our wide receivers,” he said. “We’ve got guys that can catch the ball and we can protect up front. We work very hard at it in practice on the passing game.
“Louisville likes to blitz and use different types of blitzes and we work everyday for extended periods of times pass protecting against the blitz. I hope we can execute when we need to.”
Rodriguez says he doesn’t go into a game looking for a set number of passing yards to help keep defenses honest.
“We don’t look at the numbers and say we need to have so many yards passing to offset this,” he said. “We try to react to the way they are defending us and call the plays accordingly.”
“The Big East is going to beat each other up. The league from top to bottom is better than it’s been in a long time and I think it’s showing out each week,” Rodriguez said.
