Rich Rodriguez frustrated with WVU football injuries as Week 1 preparations start
Feeling the heat
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MORGANTOWN -- It's been over two weeks since West Virginia football started camp, and as classes have started, camps over and now it's just normal practice, moving the sessions to the afternoon.
A talking point Rich Rodriguez's brought up a couple of times is the weather for practices. Rodriguez is used to practicing in the south with the humidity and intense heat, but for camp and now the start of normal practices, the weather's been just perfect.
"We've had no heat, no humidity, it's been 75 degrees, which has been beautiful," Rodriguez said.
With the it being perfect practice weather, it's frustrating him the number of injuries that have popped up every day.
"I get a little frustrated when we have some soft tissue stuff," Rodriguez said. "Seven to eight guys with hamstring strains or whatever it is. It’s not anything anybody’s done wrong. It just kind of happens."
He didn't get too deep into specifics, but he mentioned tight end Cam Ball is questionable for the first game, tight end Ryan Ward is working to get back to practice and running back Lawrence Autry has been banged up for a couple of weeks.
"Nobody wants to get hurt, but it kind of happens," Rodriguez said.
Part of the reason Rodriguez thinks there are more injuries is that the players aren't wired like they were back in the day. He's been coaching for a long time, and used to have two practices a day, so having just one practice and all the injuries blows his mind a little, especially with the weather.
"Guys nowadays, if you don’t work them out, they’re not like in the old days where in the summer you worked out, you played ball every day. If you weren’t working out in the weight room, you were playing basketball; you’re active all the time," Rodriguez said. "Our guys were here all summer, and then all of a sudden they go full speed in practice for a little bit, and it's a little bit straining on them, so that part is a little frustrating."
Rodriguez said his practices are physical. They do live reps, where it’s game-like, and Saturday, WVU had a scrimmage that was 100 plays. The more experienced players don't go live as much, and Wednesday afternoon, most of the young players went live.
"It's not like our practices are that physical," Rodriguez said. "We went live for 100 plays or something in the scrimmage. I was pretty pleased with the intensity there. A little live with the young guys. It was soft. I don't know if anybody got a bruise at all today because there was a lot of patty caking going on with the young guys. It was kind of a pillow fight. Neither side won because both sides had pillows."
If the practices aren't physical, then maybe it's something to do with the strength and conditioning staff? Rodriguez will quickly stop you there.
"That would be the first reason why I would not bring anything up because somebody would ask a question like they're doing something in the strength staff,” Rodriguez said. “Like you don't think we do everything possible; our strength staff doesn't do everything possible to try to prevent that. That would be the first reason why I would never talk about it again. You can't help if a guy twists an ankle or sprains a knee."
Rodriguez said the reason is just bad luck. But, learning from all the injuries last year, Rodriguez wants to make sure he's prepared if WVU gets the injury bug again this season, building a lot more depth at every position, which he feels he has.
"It's just freaky luck," Rodriguez said. "You got to build depth. It's probably harder to build now in the money era because a lot of guys want to go and start and get paid more and all that. But I do think we should have better depth this year. I feel better about our depth this year. We purposely tried to address that because just in case we had bad luck."
The weather hasn't helped with Rodriguez's frustrations about the injuries. Because if this is the number of injuries in perfect weather, he can't imagine what the scene would look like if they practiced in the south.
Rodriguez is hoping the team gets a taste of that in the coming weeks.
"I hope in the next week we get a practice that is 95 and humid," Rodriguez said. "Something happens in Morgantown, West Virginia, and the humidity says, 'I'm coming from the south, and I'm landing in Morgantown, and you better get your IVs ready and your Gatorade, and all that because we're coming after you.' I miss one day of that, where you can't wait to jump into the cold tub afterward. We had none of it. It's like a vacation."