Post by cviller on Aug 21, 2007 10:38:12 GMT -5
By Mike Casazza
Daily Mail sportswriter
MORGANTOWN -- There's a funny and frequently frustrating thing about college football and the way it is to be played at the highest level.
West Virginia University Coach Rich Rodriguez can teach kids how to throw and how to catch a football, how to block a defender and how to rock a blocker. Virtually anything a player needs to be successful on the football field can be learned here at WVU.
Yet, neither Rodriguez nor his assembly of assistant coaches can teach their Mountaineers how to love the game.
"No question," Rodriguez said. "You can't like football and play at this level. You better love it or you won't last. There's too much work that goes into it just to be a guy who likes it.
"You've got to have a passion for it."
As far as anyone at the Puskar Center football facility is concerned, there are only two types of college football players. There are the players that love the game and the players that don't.
At WVU, they know only one type.
"I know one thing," defensive lineman Keilen Dykes said. "To play here, you'd better love it. You've got guys who like football and are just happy to come out of the tunnel and, then, you've got guys who love football and want to come out of the tunnel and play on the field.
"There's a big difference."
When a player hits campus, he loves it or he's a lost cause. Rodriguez will work with players that are homesick or looking for more playing time, either at another position or another school. He can't work with anyone that doesn't love the game.
Rodriguez knows no way to make a player love running up the WVU Law School hill or adore the torturous conditioning.
In that regard, it's a benefit because a program committed to being a national championship contender cannot have parts that are not committed to the plan.
"If a guy comes to me and says his heart isn't into it anymore, there's not anything I can say," Rodriguez said.
With that, they're gone, although Rodriguez says he and his assistants try to avoid those situations in recruiting. They're looking for something special, something best described by fullback Owen Schmitt, a former walk-on after playing at an NCAA Division III program.
"I love it," he said, "even when I hate it."
It's an identifiable trait. Coaches evaluate players and their potential for success both on the field and in the classroom. The third element is that love for the game.
"If you don't have it, you can't play football at West Virginia," safety Eric Wicks said. "It's that simple. You have to have that passion and that will to work hard and practice hard. Nothing is easy around here.
"Everybody around this team loves the game and will love it until it's gone."
In some cases, the love extends beyond the playing days.
"Believe it or not, I'd still play if they'd let me," Rodriguez said. "I wouldn't be very good, but I'd still play."
The enthusiasm starts at the top and it's contagious. Rodriguez came to WVU as a walk-on in the early 1980s and left on scholarship. He expects everyone else to have the same drive.
"I'm not knocking Coach Rod and the type of coach he is because I love it and I think it suits me perfectly," Schmitt said, "but you definitely have to love football at this level, otherwise it's not worth it.
"If you just wanted to throw the jersey on and say you're part of the team, I wouldn't do it.
"There are huge sacrifices you have to make to get that jersey."
Yet, there are rewards, too, and the coaching staff stresses that all the time.
The coaches speak about the passion, but also the payoff, and how one cannot exist without the other.
Everyone is in this for the same reason, so everyone is responsible for doing his part to make it happen.
"You see guys who are willing to come out after practice and do the little things you don't necessarily want to do, but the things you have to do to get the job done," cornerback Vaughn Rivers said. "You have to make yourself better to make the team better.
"Dedication is a big part of this."
