Spring Practice Report
April 05, 2007 11:35 AM | General
April 5, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – He may not feel this way today, tomorrow or even next week, but the perfectionist in Rich Rodriguez can’t let one bad spring practice slip by without getting things corrected – immediately.
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| Rich Rodriguez looks on at a practice inside the Caperton Indoor Practice Facility earlier this spring.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“Our defense can walk off the field and it would take us more than 10 plays to score,” said the coach Wednesday evening. “We may not be able to score in 10 plays against air. We can’t block, we can’t throw, we can’t catch; we can’t run. Other than that it’s all right. I’m not sure our defense was any better.
“Right now we’re not a very good football team,” he continued. “I hope we get better in one more practice which I doubt will happen. They better have a great summer because we’re not ready to win any games.”
What exactly went wrong Wednesday?
“The execution wasn’t good; I didn’t think the intensity wasn’t any good on offense. I don’t know if I’ve got any wide receivers that are ready. I don’t know if I’ve got any running backs … I don’t know if I’ve got five linemen.
“How much time do you have?”
Rodriguez is the first coach in WVU history to lead the Mountaineers’ to back-to-back New Year’s Day bowl victories and consecutive Top 10 finishes. He understands that just one off game can derail some of his program’s biggest goals.
“To me every day is a day to compete. It’s a day to get better,” he explained. “If we had a practice tomorrow and we had a good day my attitude would completely change. You can’t have an off day and I think our guys understand that. We don’t play that many games. You play 12 and hope to play 13. You have an off day in one of those 12 and then all of the sudden you lose one of those goals. If you have a couple off days you lose a lot of your goals.
“Our guys are going to understand that because we don’t play enough games to have off days.”
Particularly irking Coach Rod has been the inconsistent play of his wide receiver corps. Before spring began Rodriguez moved quarterback Nate Sowers to slot receiver to provide more athletic ability and speed. His next option may be to crash-course the five receivers he signed in February.
“I’m going to figure something out because if Coach Magee and I are going to call the plays we’ve got to have some viable pass receiving options,” Rodriguez said.
Darius Reynaud is one proven performer, catching 39 passes for 520 yards and scoring two touchdowns in 2006. After that there isn’t a returning receiver that caught more than seven passes last season.
“We’ve got Darius Reynaud who I think is going to be pretty solid out there,” Rodriguez said. “Nate Sowers has shown some things. Tito Gonzales has been hot and cold. Dorrell Jalloh has been hot and cold. We’ll find enough to play with. I just hope it’s sooner rather than later.”
Rodriguez is also hopeful that talented 6-foot-8-inch sophomore Wes Lyons is ready to assume a more prominent role this fall.
“Wes has been OK. Everybody wants us to throw the ball to him all of the time last year. Last time I checked the rules if we did the passes would be incomplete because he was standing next to me half the time on the sidelines,” Rodriguez said. “Wes has got some talent and it’s important to him but it’s time for Wes to take the next step.”
Lyons has shown glimpses this spring that he can be a reliable player. Rodriguez wants him to do it every day on every snap.
“Just because you’re tall doesn’t mean you’re ready. He’s got to work harder to get ready and hopefully he’ll do that this summer,” Rodriguez said.
“His ball skills are OK. I think Wes is still kind of growing into his body. He may be taller now than when we signed him and he is still physically catching up to that,” Rodriguez said. “That takes a lot of work. He’s not been here a full summer yet. You tend to forget that this is his first spring like a lot of those other freshmen.”
Overall, Rodriguez wants his entire team to become more consistent.
“Maybe in a different program it is acceptable but in any good program you want a level of consistency with your veterans and the guys you’re planning on winning with every day. Right now we’re not getting that,” he said.
Briefly:
“The colder it is the shorter the scrimmage. If it’s snowing we may not come out after halftime,” he said. “I don’t want our fans to have to sit out there too long and watch a miserable scrimmage in miserable weather.”
Rodriguez is not going to go into the crowd this year and let fans call plays as he has done in the past.
“I wasn’t going to do that anyways because we’ve got three new coaches and we’ve got so many young guys that we have to teach,” he explained. “I had a lot of fun with that but this year it’s going to be pretty quick.”
