MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia concluded its first spring practice inside the Caperton Indoor Practice Facility this morning, and judging from coach Rich Rodriguez's voice, he might not be able to talk by the end of this week.
 
"Our team chaplain was there, and he's probably praying for me right now," Rodriguez, sipping a bottle of water, joked afterward. "The intent was good, and they worked pretty hard. But we had four or five pre-snap penalties on offense, and I'm used to going four or five practices without having one.
 
"We've got to fix that up front with the big guys, and we're still feeling our way with the first practice of getting our timing down, but I liked the effort back from where I was seeing it," he added.
 
Rodriguez pointed out that this was his first practice with his new coaching staff, and while many of them have coached with him before, it's going to take a little time getting used to each other and becoming familiar with the terminology he's using.
 
He said senior offensive assistant Travis Trickett and offensive analyst and assistant running backs coach Noel Devine worked with the backfield while he continues to look for Chad Scott's replacement. 
 
He indicated he could have that process wrapped up in a week or so.
 
"Even though a lot of us have been together as a staff, this was the first practice with this whole staff, so there were some things we will work out coaching-wise and how practice runs," he said, adding, "I hate idle time and standing around at practice.
 
"I tell our coaches the most valuable time of our day is with our players, whether it is in a meeting or at practice, and that time that we have with our guys, we've got to make sure that we're really ready for them, and they're not waiting on us, so to speak," he said.
 
As he mentioned last week when he met with media members, Rodriguez again talked positively about the seven quarterbacks listed on the roster the Athletics Communications office distributed to the media this morning.
 
Those seven are returners Nicco Marchiol, Scott Kean and Khalil Wilkins, Texas A&M transfer Jaylen Henderson, Charlotte transfer Max Brown, redshirt freshman Abe Fenwick from George Washington High in Charleston and freshmen Scott Fox Jr. from Mentor, Ohio.
 
Rich and his son, Rhett, WVU's quarterbacks coach, will be working closely with them this spring getting them up to speed on the offensive system the Mountaineers will be running this fall.
 
"I've got Rhett, who is probably the opposite of me personality-wise; he's kind of the calm one," Rodriguez said. "I think they get a little good-cop, bad-cop stuff with Rhett and me. He's done a great job with them, and I like our quarterback room from a conscientious standpoint, those guys are really eager. Of all the positions that we have, and I know everyone worries about the quarterback position, but I feel good about our quarterback room. We'll be okay there."
 
Rodriguez indicated the installation of the offensive and defensive schemes will be a little different than what the returning players were used to under Neal Brown's three practice installation approach.
 
"That's kind of the Air Raid stuff doing the three, then repeating the three and doing it again," he said. "We kind of have a different methodology with that. (Defensive coordinator) Zac (Alley) had like 10 different blitzes in today and I might have to tell him to slow down a little bit with all these exotic blitzes, but offensively, we've got a lot of stuff in.
 
"We're also trying to find out what our guys do well, so we're probably putting too much stuff in because we're trying to evaluate what routes we run well and the routes we throw well and all that," he said.
 
He indicated a portion of each practice this spring must be geared toward evaluating, and the evaluation process will become even more important when the pads go on beginning this Saturday.
 
The next few practices will be devoted to schemes, techniques and determining which players can do what. Specifically, Rodriguez said he wants all his wide receivers to learn the inside and outside positions, even though that will require some time.
 
On the other side of the ball, West Virginia's defensive backs must be able to play man coverage, and if they can play man without a lot of help behind them, then the full defensive playbook will be at their disposal.
 
"Today, I'll watch the whole team period with the staff, and that will take probably two hours, at least because we'll watch the whole film," Rodriguez said. "We've got to do a really good job of evaluating our guys each and every day to see who the guys are that we can win with.
 
"I hope we have two guys at every position good enough to win with, or maybe even three guys at every position, but inevitably, we might not have that many, but we're going to figure that out by the end of spring," he said.
 
The overriding objective is finding enough guys with the desire to win football games.
 
"I want guys who will crawl over top of people to win," Rodriguez explained. "If you are not a competitive guy, you are going to stand out here in the wrong way. I've been blessed. When we've had success, wherever it was, it was because we had really, really good players that had that competitive, hard-edge mentality. And I tell them, once they get it, they kind of have it forever."
 
With only two returning regulars on offense and no full-time regulars back on defense, it's going to be a completely different lineup this fall compared to the one Mountaineer fans saw in West Virginia's bowl-game loss to Memphis last December.
 
Rodriguez said "nine or 10" players were in yellow (limited practice) jerseys today, one of them being returning running back Jahiem White.

"It's nothing serious," Rodriguez said.
 
Spring work continues Thursday morning, and the coach will once again be made available to the media afterward.