Quick Hits: Defense, Portal Needs, Walk-ons + More

The West Virginia University football program held its 11th spring practice on Thursday.

Head coach Rich Rodriguez provided his thoughts on the morning practice session.

Overall thoughts on the defense

I like the group. I like coach (Defensive coordinator Zach) Alley’s staff and how they’re working, but ain’t none of them played and there’s so many unknowns with that, but they’ll play hard.

Theres probably still some concerns at certain positions depth-wise and all that. Everything that they’re doing is all new. So, they got a lot of work to do. Theres not a guy over there that’s returning that played here. Theres some of the transfers that played at their previous schools, so you get some experience with that. They’re getting a little bit better every day.

Portal needs

We need to get some o-linemen and d-linemen. We need to get some wideouts a running back. We probably need to get some linebackers, a corner, a safety, and a couple d-lineman.

I made sure the kicker today – he had been pretty good, today wasn’t the best day. So, probably need a kicker, maybe to compete too.

I like where the quarterbacks are at. We got some competition there. The other ones, we’ll be in the portal.

Defensive backs

I thought they played pretty well today. I think they’re getting a little better. At the beginning of spring it was not as good as it needed to be but the last couple of practices have been better. A little bit of that has been tempered because we got to get some more guys to challenge them a little bit.

We’ve done a lot of one on ones, a lot of evaluation, but I think they’ve gotten better, but theres still some concerns there, especially with depth.

Team Competition

We have to get more competitive – a competitive mindset. I am just not used to guys in any reps in practice, I’m not talking about individual, but reps in practice when you’re going against another guy in different color jersey, I’m not used those being noncompetitive in those reps whether you’re live or thud. That just one on ones whatever it is. I’m not saying it’s the end of the world if you lose a rep because everybody is going to lose a rep, but it ought to bother you a little bit. It ought to bother you as a coach, I know it bothers the coaches, but it bothers the hell out of me. I mean, it bothers me till the next practice. Maybe I’m over the top competitive.

Walk-ons surviving the 105 roster limit

(NCAA) They’re trying to [get rid of walk-ons]. That’s the thing that ticks me off the most. You’re basically going to cut 20 walk-ons. I’m a former walk-on. I might have got cut. I survived, everybody was quitting in front of me, so I was climbing the depth chart.

The worst part is a lot of those guys are good players who are going to be productive and be able to help and they’re getting a West Virginia education and get to play football for the Mountaineers and because we got to cut the size of the roster.  

I know there’s got to be a financial piece to it and some guys in suits are sitting around and saying it needs to be cut to 105. Why do you need – NFL only has 53 players even though they can bring guys off the street.

Why wouldn’t you got to 115, and then the next year 110, and then next year 105, so the guys that are current walk-ons or guys that are on that bubble, you got to push them out so to speak then find a place in June.

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