Day One Recap
August 05, 2006 09:36 PM | General
August 5, 2006
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Download Coach Rodriguez's Saturday comments at MSN's new MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – A typical day at the office was pretty much how West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez described his team’s first practice of fall camp Saturday afternoon at Milan Puskar Stadium.
“I thought the effort was pretty good and I thought the attentiveness was pretty good. But the execution was awful,” he said. “When someone asked John McKay what he thought about his team’s execution he said I’m all for it. That would be a good quote from me today.”
Most of the mistakes were physical, according to the coach.
“We had dropped balls and didn’t complete passes,” Rodriguez said. “We didn’t have a lot of mental mistakes, particularly defensively, but we only had one or two defenses in. I think the guys were working pretty hard.
“I think they’re pretty good shape; we’re not ready to play a game but nobody is. It’s a starting point and we’ll go from there.”
Rodriguez says one of his main objectives during the next three weeks it to develop a reliable backup quarterback behind sophomore Patrick White. The two contenders are redshirt freshmen Nate Sowers and Jarrett Brown.
“Either Nate Sowers or Jarrett Brown has got to keep getting better,” Rodriguez mentioned. “I think they’re a lot sharper now than they were in the spring. Their heads are going to start to swim as we start to install our offense.”
Rodriguez has to juggle between going slow enough to keep from confusing his young backup quarterbacks and progressing enough to maintain a reasonable pace for the rest of the offense.
“That’s the thing that’s going to be really tough for us as coaches,” he said. “We’ve got to put some things in for the veterans but at the same time we’ve got to have those guys as ready as well. We’re probably going to be a little slower than I’d like installation wise on offense but I think they will get it.”
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| Quarterback Patrick White attempts a pass during West Virginia's first practice on Saturday afternoon at Milan Puskar Stadium in Morgantown, W.Va.
AP photo |
Although he is not available to play this year, Rodriguez says junior Adam Bednarik will be a great help to the young quarterbacks.
“He will help them immensely. He’s a team guy and he’s going to counsel those guys a little bit,” Rodriguez said. “He can talk to them sometimes on the side a little bit when Coach Stewart and I are busy with other things. And Pat is doing a great job too of helping them progress.”
Wide receiver Dorrell Jalloh injured his foot in practice today and linebacker Mortty Ivy was limited after coming off knee surgery last spring.
“Dorrell has a small stress fracture so it’s probably going to be a thing where we keep him out for three or four days, let him do some conditioning, and stay off the foot as much as possible and hopefully we can get him back,” Rodriguez said.
“Mortty is not 100 percent but he can do a lot of things in practice. It may be another week or so before he’s 100 percent.”
Rodriguez says it’s still too early to tell if any of the newcomers will help the team this year.
“Watching them individually they were swimming mentally,” he said. “They’re not quite ready physically but I’m encouraged by their athleticism, especially some of the guys in the secondary. We’ll see what happens over the next couple of weeks.”
The coach will evaluate them right up until the first game and beyond to determine which ones will be redshirted and which ones will play this season.
“You don’t really have to make a decision until you play your first game and for some of them it may be after the first game,” he said. “It may be a couple of games in and we say, hey, let’s throw the rookie in there like Steve Slaton last year. We’ll get a pretty good idea during the next three weeks.”
Briefly:
“We’ll take it. We’ve got a quote in our lock room that says, ‘The problem with most people is not that they aim too high and miss but aim too low and hit it.’ We’re going to aim high and see what happens.”
“Dan (Mozes) has a more aerodynamic look to maybe increase his forty time or something. Some of them were getting a little long anyway,” he said.
“He’s very athletic and he has a feel and instincts for the game,” Rodriguez said of the Pittsburgh resident. “I think he understands what his role is and we’re going to have him do more than he’s ever done. With not a lot of experience besides him he’s going to play a key role. He’s in pretty good shape and he’s had a pretty good last couple of years and if he stays healthy I think he will have a great year.”
“He was a great high school tailback,” Rodriguez said. “When we get a match up that we like with him in the slot, we’ve got to take advantage of that and we’ve got to be able to complete those passes.”
“We need guys behind Steve Slaton who can go. Owen Schmitt can do it but who are the other guys?” said Rodriguez. “Jason Colson is a guy that we can rely on but we’ve got to get more whether it’s Ed Collington or Jetavious Best … one of those guys have to step up and be the other guy. Maybe it’s Jeremy Bruce who played high school running back. He had a pretty good day today at slot receiver.”
