WVU football finalizing ‘who is ready’ in last practices leading up to Week 1
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MORGANTOWN -- It's crunch time for Rich Rodriguez and West Virginia football. In under two weeks, the Mountaineers will run out to the field to face Coastal Carolina in the first game of the season on Sept. 5. In these last couple of days leading up to the first game, it's a lot of ticking off the final unknowns.
The biggest unknown is finalizing who is ready to play. Who is ready to take on an FBS school in under two weeks.
"I think we've gotten to the point where we identified most the guys that are ready to play," Rodriguez said. "There's still a few more that we got to get ready in the next week and a half. But we got some time to get that done."
It's harder in this era of college football. Roster turnover is constant, and WVU is a perfect example of that. There were a few returning starters, who Rodriguez knows are ready to play, like receiver Jaden Bray and linebacker Ben Cutter, but a lot of the roster will be new players. It doesn't mean they aren't experienced, but they'll be new players wearing the gold and blue.
"With a huge amount of new starters, again, there’s always a little bit more anxiety on exactly how they’re going to play," Rodriguez said.
College football isn't like the NFL. There aren't preseason games and joint practices, which Rodriguez would be in favor of, so the only way you know if a player is ready is against your own players.
This anxiousness is why most Power Four schools open up against FCS schools and are electing to play easier opponents, so they figure out the issues before facing the tougher conference opponents. Especially with how the College Football Playoff committee has been selecting, you really don't get punished for strength of schedule, and are rewarded for winning no matter the opposition.
Rodriguez said it doesn't matter who you play in Week 1; you're always going to have concerns.
"Would you open up with a conference game? I think no matter who you open up with in college football in general, you're probably a little bit more anxious because you have no idea, or you don't have the best idea what you have," Rodriguez said.
Without the preseason or joint practices, Rodriguez tries to simulate game situations as much as possible. He'll crank up the sound in the stadium to make it hard for quarterbacks to hear, icing the kickers and putting the defense with their feet in the end zone.
The quarterbacks, in particular, are the most important to have game-ready. Luckily, both Scotty Fox Jr. and Michael Hawkins Jr. have played college football on the big stage, so they won't be shell-shocked. But both are learning new plays, even Fox, for this season.
"In the games they’re like, 'I’m glad coach is not behind me yelling at me. I’m out here just executing things.'" Rodriguez said. "A lot of the new stuff we are doing is new, so we'll find out in the first game."
Along with those pressure situations, Rodriguez is running a mock game on Friday. The team will get used to the sidelines and practice making substitutions. Rodriguez is hoping that before Tuesday's practice, everything will be prepared so the focus can be solely on Coastal Carolina.
But when you have a roster of around 70 new players, can you truly ever be ready? Rodriguez thinks next year he'll be a bit less anxious since he shouldn't be in that situation. He plans to retain a lot of the roster, but in this era of college athletics, you never truly know what you have and will have.
"Very rarely in this day and age of college football, you have a team that has 14 or 15 starters coming back," Rodriguez said. "We’re hoping that will happen next year. Those days are different. You have to adapt a little bit more."