West Virginia’s season opener was truly a tale of two halves. In the first 30 minutes, the Mountaineers looked like they were well on their way to accomplishing what they needed to — create a large lead and eventually get to the point where some younger guys can get into the game and get some experience.
When they came out of the locker room for the second half, things changed. The offense had three consecutive three-and-outs, some of which were due to some conservative play-calling, which Rich Rod admitted to, but they couldn’t get anything going, and defensively, things got sloppy. Like, REAL sloppy.
Despite pinning Coastal Carolina at their own 1-yard line, the Mountaineers allowed a 99-yard touchdown drive, giving the Chanticleers some life. That drive was aided by three WVU penalties — the first coming on third down when they were still backed up near their end zone. A punt there would have given WVU a short field to work with and could have led to them going up 31-0. Instead, they gave up the score, continued to lose contain on defense, and Coastal ended up making it a one-score game.
Head coach Rich Rodriguez was, as you could imagine, NOT a happy camper with the way things ended in the second half, and decided to call what he believes to be the first-ever staff meeting after a game. He had a brief eight-minute press conference and then went straight to that meeting 15 minutes after the game to get his message across.
“Just got a few things going and made sure we watched the film that night while it was fresh in our minds, and our coaches are pretty conscientious too. We knew what we did wrong,” Rodriguez said during his radio show on Monday night. “The thing that bothered me…some of the first-game stuff we thought we would get, we got, but some of the stuff, a lot of it, was really avoidable and things that we have to harp on as coaches. And that’s where I talk about discipline. It’s not a sometime thing; it’s an all-the-time thing. And what I mean by discipline is not a guy acting like an egghead; it could be losing contain. If I scream don’t lose contain ten times in that game…I did it a hundred times. We had stupid penalties, three of them on one drive that gave them first downs — things that should not happen. It’s the same if our locker room’s messy, if a guy is one minute late for workout or whatever it is; that can never happen. I was a little surprised that we had discipline issues because our guys have been really discipline to this date. We’ll get it fixed.”
Rodriguez further explained why he felt the need to call a staff meeting immediately after the game instead of waiting until the next morning.
“I just wanted to do it while I was still pissed off. What I heard about and what I was reading about was Lane Kiffin and Nick Saban working together, and I guess Lane wasn’t used to Coach Saban; when he sees something, he says something right away. He tried to explain to him, ‘When I get mad, I want to get it right then and get it over with, and you move on to the next thing.’ Mrs. Rita (Rodriguez) over there could tell you I do the same thing. Like if I see something, I say something right away, and then I move on from it. It doesn’t linger. I’m not one to write a note down and then wait until the next day when I feel better and say it. I’d rather go ahead and get it out, whether it’s to coaches or players, get it corrected, and move it on to the next thing.”
Rich Rod has always said that you can never allow one thing to slide when it comes to meeting the standard. That’s true with the coaches too. He expected a better product on Saturday and is making sure that what happened in the second half doesn’t happen again.
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