Rich Rodriguez Wants to See More of a Spark After the First Day of Pads Concludes

Today marks the first day of padded practice for the Mountaineer Football team and despite seeing some competitive spirit from his team, Rich Rodriguez saw some things he wants to change moving forward.

“It’s the first day in pads,” said Rodriguez as he opened up his press conference. “Some good, some bad,” said Rodriguez regarding his team’s performance. “Obviously, you can teach a lot more and learn a lot more when you go full pads,” explained Rodriguez, “we only did about ten minutes live.” To the credit of the players, it was the first time in months that many of them had not only suited up in pads but also played a live snap of football. Pairing that with a brand new head coach, coaching staff, and different schemes, it was no surprise that they struggled.

However, Rodriguez is not worried and knows that his players will continue to improve as Spring Training progresses forward. “As I told the team, I saw some pretty good moments,” said Rodriguez, “We looked like we were competitive and playing with an edge.” But, Rodriguez was not scared to discuss the poorer side of his team’s performance. “I saw too many periods of softness, and we will have to get that fixed,” said Rodriguez. Based on his past coaching experiences, such as when he coached at Jax State, Arizona, and Michigan, Rich Rodriguez is familiar with the first season struggles as a Head Coach and he has always battled through those struggles and created a competitive football team.

Now, being in his second stint with his alma mater, he looks to do the same thing. “The first spring is always the hardest and always been the ugliest everywhere I’ve been,” said Rodriguez. After that, he quickly diverted his attention to the Spring Game, discussing how he intends on his team performing in that game to reflect their growth in the offseason, but, ultimately there are a lot of other things the team needs to focus on getting done that take priority over the Spring Game. “We’ll have a little fun,” said Rodriguez, “We’ll do some stuff out there and engage with the fans, but we are not going to do a true scrimmage or game because we just have so many other things we got to get done.”

While the Spring Game is an important milestone for every single college football program yearly, it only displays a fraction of what the team’s overall potential is and, most importantly, what the team is going to look like heading into opening weekend. Just like Rich Rodriguez said, there is a lot that the team still needs to get done; there is going to be plenty more evaluation, teaching moments, and areas that will need to be fixed or tweaked. But, the Mountaineer fanbase should feel confident with Rich Rodriguez at the helm because, under his leadership, he will have the players looking sharp and prepared in the fall.