Rich Rodriguez Coastal Carolina Post Game

Yeah, I'll have an open statement. First off, I thought our crowd was fantastic. Really neat to see everybody in white for Pat White's special day. And then I thought the Mountaineer Maniacs were phenomenal. Just a great atmosphere. I mean, hats off to West Virginia fans and the folks that came here and created a great atmosphere. Yeah, I really thought coming out of the first half played well in all three phases. In the second half, we stunk. Didn't do anything good. Not really happy about that. But it's hard to win. You know, it's really – it's hard to win. You can see, I don't know what the result of any games were today, but just in the last week what's happened in college football, some games. But credit to those guys. They played hard and their little quarterback made a lot of plays for them. And we got a lot to work on. But take the win and correct our mistakes starting like in the next 15 minutes with the coaches. I got a meeting here with the coaches. And then go on to the next one. Rich, expand upon the differences in the first half and the second half. What did you see that you did well the first half? Well, first half we played good football, played smart football and executed. Second half we played bad football and didn't execute. I mean, it's kind of what I've seen. So, I don't want to say it's a lesson learned. I know in hell I've done a lot of these – I've had 300 some games. But for our players, they'll learn from it. I really think our guys are really conscientious. But we'll get what we demand. And there's a couple things, I'm not going to go into all the detail that stick at the top of my head that were really frustrating in the second half that we did not get corrected. And that falls on me and as a head coach in getting it done with my staff. If you could evaluate Hawkins' play, decision making, what went into him being the starter? Yeah, he was – you know, it was really close. And I think I have two starters with him and Scottie. And I liked the play of Scottie, but the flow of the game. Like I said, the second half we had no possessions hardly. But Mike was the most – you know, showed some explosive stuff in practice and made a lot of plays. And you know, again, there's a few mistakes that he would take back, I'm sure he would tell you. But I think he's going to grow out of every game. Because he's a very, very conscientious guy and knows that we can play better as a unit on offense. Rich, you had a couple of true freshman plays, Kevin, Armani and Matt. What do you think – how do you think they handled the pressure at the start? Okay, I'll have to watch the film to see how they graded. You know, the play of – the starters, the true freshman offensive line is really rare, really rare. And you know that Kevin, it looked like he played pretty good. But we had a whole lot more guys we did not play, particularly on offense. And that's just because the second half we were not playing good football. But we'll work on that. And our guys, like I said, you know, our guys understand, they're pretty conscious, my staff does too. But we got to have more of an urgency to fix, I guess, things that are – to me that are – I don't – nothing's easy to fix. But there are some things that should be relatively easy to fix. And we did not do that in the second half. And so we'll get that corrected before the sun goes down. You wanted those pass coverage? Well, and pass rush, pass coverage and that and more. No, I was – yeah, I mean, I'm a medical person and it was a tough, tough injury there. But he's in great hands with our medical staff, so I haven't hurt anything. You guys like Cam and Coke? Yeah, I thought he ran pretty hard, there wasn't a whole lot of holes in there second half. And he's a competitive guy, you could see he was – he was straining for some yards there. You know, he obviously got off to a good start. But he's a good football player and it was good to get Amare some reps too. I thought he ran pretty hard. I thought, you know, there's a lot that we can clean up in our run game. But until I watch the film, it's hard for me to point it out exactly what it is. But we've got – get to work on it right away. Are you happy with the fact that you started with the first half compared to the disappointing second half? I mean, how did you weigh the two halves? Oh no, I'm happy to win. It's hard to win. I'm happy to win. But I'm not happy with the way we play football at times. And I don't think it's an effort thing, which is good. But there's some execution type of stuff that happened repeatedly that it shouldn't have happened. And I'm not going to go into all the detail, but I'm like, what are we doing with this? And then I'm over there screaming on the sidelines that this particular thing, the whole second half, and yet it still happened. So maybe I lost my voice, maybe I'm mute, maybe nobody hears me. Or maybe everybody just clues me out. You know, I don't know. But anyway, you give them credit, I got a lot of respect for their staff. They got to get some good football play. That little quarterback, I told him after the game, Deuce played his tail off. He ran around all over the place and made a lot of plays for them. Coach, if you would, just talk about sharing that moment with Pat White, whenever he was walking off the field, it was awesome to see that. Yeah, well it was awesome to see the whole presentation, what they did, our athletic department, you know, ran the folks. We got out, I didn't know what the time frame was, but we got out there when everybody was at midfield and you could see Pat's emotion and just it was first class, well done. Like I said, the crowd was dressed in white and you know, and for Patrick, you know, you know that had to make him, you know, him and his family feel real special, which is what the intent was. And so our athletic department people did a great job. I think leading up to it and you know, it was a nice day and really proud of him. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't happen very often, right? You get your number retired and he's certainly deserving and was pretty emotional. Did he say anything to the team before the game? That ain't like him. You know, he wasn't going to make it about him, he was going to make it about the game. You know, you wouldn't have even known. You know, Pat wouldn't have told anybody, I don't know if he did. I'm glad he told his family to come, so they were all there. It was good to see, I hadn't seen some of his family in 20 years. So that was really neat. And he's an icon and I love having him around for sure. You know, I thought our special teams played pretty well. You know, I think, you know, the last pooch punt wasn't Brian's best, but I thought he putted well. I was really proud of Jack. You know, he was in a close battle and I thought he kicked off great and he kicked field goals and the special teams I thought did a nice job. Our special teams coaches and players did a nice job today. Fumble on the goal line? Yeah, you just can't do that, you don't need to reach. Unless it's fourth down and goal and you're not there, you never reach out. And so, you know, that's seven points it costs right there. But we'll learn from that. Was there anything that justifies that Coach's defense did against you guys against the run in the second half compared to the first? Well, in the second half we had two possessions and two three and outs in the third quarter, I think that's all we had. And, you know, they load the box a little bit. And so we were still going to try to run it. But it was more, you know, it's a little bit they did, but it also some – we're going to look at the film and say, gee, you know, we had some stuff there and just didn't make it happen. So, like I said, I'd rather work off a win than a loss. Now anybody wants to cry about a win, you know, they can cry about a win. But, you know, I'm glad we can teach off a win and get better for next week.