Rich Rodriguez is back at West Virginia and wants to go fast. However, one of the original innovators of the up-tempo in college football cannot get up and run because his new players are fat and slow.
Those are not his exact words, they are mine, but you can read between the lines.
Rodriguez, 61, was hired to replace Neil Brown in December for a second stint at his alma mater. The Mountaineers won 60 games from 2001-2007 including three-straight 10-win seasons in 2005, 2006, 2007. They won 10 or more college football games in only two seasons since.
With Rodriguez back in the saddle after stints at Michigan, Arizona, Ole Miss, Hawaii, Louisiana-Monroe and Jacksonville State, West Virginia believes it is in a position to compete for a Big 12 title right away. There will be a learning curve and success may not happen overnight, but the expectation is to win.
The identity of this 2025 team is slowly starting to take shape during the spring practice period. Thursday marked the fourth day of pads after drills officially got underway last Tuesday. Rodriguez does not expect things to be perfect. His players are still “learning how to practice” under the new regime.
If you haven’t played a whole lot, or you’re a young guy, even the fundamentals are going to be new to you, so that’s what spring ball is for. We’re teaching a lot, but I think they’ve done a good job of trying to learn as quickly as they can.
— Rich Rodriguez
Most of the focus is on player evaluation and basic install with things like the playbook.
I’ve tried to get more efficient, get more done in a two-hour practice. We like to say (that) if our practices are an hour and a half (or) two hours, we’ll get more done in two hours than most teams will in five.
— Rich Rodriguez
With that being said, Rodriguez has not been able to go as fast as he wants because his players are holding him back. That is true both in a literal and figurative sense.
The Mountaineers want to run a high-tempo offense. Huddles will be rare. There will be an emphasis on pace. Go go go go go!
We’re still going tempo and in fact, we’re probably going faster now than we have. There are things that you think are unique that gives you a little bit of an edge.
The tempo part, I’m thoroughly convinced that is one of the unique things that we do that we won’t sacrifice on. We won’t huddle much because who wants to watch a bunch of fat guys hold hands? But when we do huddle, you won’t know when we break the huddle.
And the tempo of when we snap the ball is always going to be unique for us. I think that’s one thing that you can control offensively. And then scheme-wise, we’re using more 11 personnel with a tight end than we ever have. Probably 75% of the time we’re 11 personnel and then we’ll use some 12 and 13 personnel with two and three tight ends.
The run game is very similar – we’re still going to play with 11. Our quarterback might not run it 30 times, but he’s going to have the ability to run it 30 times if we have to to win the game.
— Rich Rodriguez
At this point in time, the athletes are not yet in a position to run their new offense at such high speeds.
We’re obviously not in good enough shape to run the stuff the way we want.
— Rich Rodriguez
I cannot imagine that West Virginia players showed up to their first spring practice with Rich Rodriguez as head coach unable to lift or run. They likely put in the same amount of work (or even a little bit more) that they did last offseason for Brown. While that might normally suffice, this up-tempo system is just different. It is a new era in Morgantown! Get moving!