Post by rainman on Oct 9, 2007 6:06:29 GMT -5
Football Notebook
By Christopher Marshall for MSNsportsNET.com
October 8, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – After reviewing his team’s 55-14 victory at Syracuse, West Virginia Coach Rich Rodriguez was pleased with the offensive efficiency his team displayed in scoring on nine of its 12 possessions in the game.
While the Mountaineers displayed much more balance than usual, rushing for 251 yards and passing for 235, Rodriguez reiterated on Sunday that it doesn’t matter to him if his guys run it or throw it as long as they get the ball in the end zone.
“I didn’t even notice until about an hour ago looking at the stats,” Rodriguez said of the balance. “We are more concerned about being productive offensively and doing what we need to do to score. It helps, but we never go into a certain game saying we need to throw X amount of passes and have X amount of runs. I don’t care.”
Instead, like any good strategist, Rodriguez likes to size up how the defense is playing his team and then adjust accordingly.
“We just try to take what they give us,” Rodriguez said. “That (9-to-12 ratio) was the most pleasing thing. We have a goal to score on half or at least six possessions a game. You usually get about 12 to 13. It’s a pretty ambitious goal, but it is something we try to do to take advantage of every possession.”
After reviewing the film, Rodriguez said he picked out numerous things that need to be corrected and tweaked during the upcoming bye week. “We can see guys have a lot of mental things to get corrected everywhere,” Rodriguez said. “We have a lot of fundamental things to get corrected on offense as well, like taking the right steps on run blocks, and being precise on passing routes.”
Rodriguez noted that he will use the idle week as a chance to get back to teaching those basics -- things a coaching staff rarely gets to do when trudging through the grind of preparing for a different opponent each week.
“It comes at a good time,” Rodriguez said. “When you play the six games in 36 days you don’t have as much time for fundamentals. We will get back to that and try to fix a few minor areas. We played hard but we can use this week to improve fundamentals and sloppy things.”
As for quarterback Patrick White and his strained pectoral muscle, Rodriguez indicated that the Daphne, Ala., native would practice sparingly this week but should be ready to go for the homecoming game against Mississippi State on Oct. 20. Other than White’s injury, Rodriguez is grateful for his team’s overall health given the amount of games they have played so early in the season.
“We’ve got an open week so he’ll take it easy this week. We have two weeks before we play a game so he should be fine,” Rodriguez said. “Being halfway through the season with as many games as we’ve played, we’re very fortunate.”
The only glaring problem area for the Mountaineers in their romp over the Orange came on special teams, where the kickoff coverage unit allowed three long returns. While Rodriguez looks to improve on that in the bye week, he’ll also try to improve West Virginia’s return game.
“On special teams, we have to get off blocks and we got out of our running lanes (on the long returns). Our kickoff coverage was poor,” Rodriguez said. “On kickoff returns we didn’t do a good job up front getting our first level blocking done. We had a couple of opportunities there and we need to get better at that.”
West Virginia will practice as normal through Wednesday and then have a short practice on Thursday. Mountaineer coaches will hit the road recruiting on Friday before reconvening on the weekend to begin preparing for Mississippi State.
By Christopher Marshall for MSNsportsNET.com
October 8, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – After reviewing his team’s 55-14 victory at Syracuse, West Virginia Coach Rich Rodriguez was pleased with the offensive efficiency his team displayed in scoring on nine of its 12 possessions in the game.
While the Mountaineers displayed much more balance than usual, rushing for 251 yards and passing for 235, Rodriguez reiterated on Sunday that it doesn’t matter to him if his guys run it or throw it as long as they get the ball in the end zone.
“I didn’t even notice until about an hour ago looking at the stats,” Rodriguez said of the balance. “We are more concerned about being productive offensively and doing what we need to do to score. It helps, but we never go into a certain game saying we need to throw X amount of passes and have X amount of runs. I don’t care.”
Instead, like any good strategist, Rodriguez likes to size up how the defense is playing his team and then adjust accordingly.
“We just try to take what they give us,” Rodriguez said. “That (9-to-12 ratio) was the most pleasing thing. We have a goal to score on half or at least six possessions a game. You usually get about 12 to 13. It’s a pretty ambitious goal, but it is something we try to do to take advantage of every possession.”
After reviewing the film, Rodriguez said he picked out numerous things that need to be corrected and tweaked during the upcoming bye week. “We can see guys have a lot of mental things to get corrected everywhere,” Rodriguez said. “We have a lot of fundamental things to get corrected on offense as well, like taking the right steps on run blocks, and being precise on passing routes.”
Rodriguez noted that he will use the idle week as a chance to get back to teaching those basics -- things a coaching staff rarely gets to do when trudging through the grind of preparing for a different opponent each week.
“It comes at a good time,” Rodriguez said. “When you play the six games in 36 days you don’t have as much time for fundamentals. We will get back to that and try to fix a few minor areas. We played hard but we can use this week to improve fundamentals and sloppy things.”
As for quarterback Patrick White and his strained pectoral muscle, Rodriguez indicated that the Daphne, Ala., native would practice sparingly this week but should be ready to go for the homecoming game against Mississippi State on Oct. 20. Other than White’s injury, Rodriguez is grateful for his team’s overall health given the amount of games they have played so early in the season.
“We’ve got an open week so he’ll take it easy this week. We have two weeks before we play a game so he should be fine,” Rodriguez said. “Being halfway through the season with as many games as we’ve played, we’re very fortunate.”
The only glaring problem area for the Mountaineers in their romp over the Orange came on special teams, where the kickoff coverage unit allowed three long returns. While Rodriguez looks to improve on that in the bye week, he’ll also try to improve West Virginia’s return game.
“On special teams, we have to get off blocks and we got out of our running lanes (on the long returns). Our kickoff coverage was poor,” Rodriguez said. “On kickoff returns we didn’t do a good job up front getting our first level blocking done. We had a couple of opportunities there and we need to get better at that.”
West Virginia will practice as normal through Wednesday and then have a short practice on Thursday. Mountaineer coaches will hit the road recruiting on Friday before reconvening on the weekend to begin preparing for Mississippi State.
