Rich Rodriguez - UT Martin press conference

All right, ready to go? All right. Great. You got the first one. Great day. Openers always have positives and negatives. So, start with positive. What did you see after watching the film that you liked? Well, I think the guys were, looked ready to play emotionally and physically. Kate played a pretty good first half and was pleased with that. And then the second half made some mistakes and had a chance to kind of like end the game, so to speak. And let them off the hook a little bit there. And you got to give them credit. They kept fighting and battling. So, there's a lot to learn from in every game. But the first game, I think there's even more so than normal to learn. Mistakes, correctable errors? Yeah. The good thing about it is I didn't see anything that we can't fix. It wasn't from a physical standpoint. Boy, this guy just got dominated or something like that. It was a silly penalty here or some kind of assignment mistake. It seemed like in the second half it was on defense. You know, we'd have just, it wouldn't be all 11 guys, but just one guy maybe out of position or something like that that would kind of hurt us. But the effort was good all day. And, you know, for a first game, we get really worried about making a multitude of mistakes that cost you a game. We made enough to make it close, but did enough good things to win. Offensive line, the most important part of learning how to play together, having that synergy. How close in those terms is the secondary? How important is that back there on your back five? On defense and secondary? Yeah. Sometimes I like, I got to remind myself that it was the first game starting for a lot of guys. I don't know, 18, 19 guys or something like that. And, you know, the whole secondary was starting for the first time. So I would expect, like every other team, the more you play in games, you know, the more the communication will be better, the more, you know, they get used to playing with each other. I think, you know, football is such a team sport anyway that, you know, whether you're talking about O-line or the secondary or what have you, one mistake makes the whole secondary look bad or makes the whole line look bad when it really is just one guy maybe, you know, trying to do something. We got to get corrected. But I think our guys are really conscientious and they've been that way really all camp and even going back to the spring. So I think they'll fix, you know, a lot of the problems that we had in the second half. And we'll have some new problems that pop up, I'm sure. But I think our coaches are working hard to fix it. How was the first game operation with you and Michael? Did you feel comfortable with what you were back and forth and the things that were going on during the game between you two? Yeah. The staff, most of us have been together now for this is the second year. So that helps a little bit. There's some new coaches and some new staff members. So you're always going to, you know, have some glitches in there. But I thought the guys handled the operations well. And again, from a player standpoint, you know, that's the first time they've played with there's not a coach standing behind them trying to correct them or what have you. So that's the thing you worry about. I told the guys that when a game starts, it's really coaches try to help you put in the right position, what have you. But it's really you're out there on your own. And even though we have the helmet communication thing, we could give them some tips or whatever until 15 seconds to go on the clock. We, you know, our guys are really kind of I think felt that for the first time that, hey, geez, you know, we got to hone in on ourselves on this deal. You talked last night about some of your play calling and some moments where you could have passed and ran, et cetera. What's your evaluation now that you've watched film? Because Pat White did a lot of this. Sometimes he would see it and, you know, make an adjustment on the fly of deciding to run if there's space on Michael Hawkins' decision making on when to take off, when to throw. Yeah, I think the quarterback decision, he has some options on certain plays. And then some of it's a natural thing that you drop back and they are bailing everybody out. You know, you have the ability to take off and run and get positive plays. Those are things that, you know, I think as you play more and more. Again, it was Mike's first game in our offense. He'll get more comfortable with some of that stuff. But I thought his decision making was pretty good. I think he was pretty decisive on what we were doing. And, again, the second half was a little bit different because we had limited possessions. And, you know, there were things we were just running the ball and killing the clock, what have you. But I think he'll continue to get better, as will everybody that played on our offense. So, I think, you know, we're – you know, every week we look at ways that we can improve from the week before. And there's a multitude of things that we can do from that standpoint. But there's also some pretty positive things that came out of that game as well. Thought they played hard. I thought they were – you know, there were a couple M.A.'s here and there. But for the first game together for all five of them, or six of them, how many of them played, I thought it was a pretty solid effort. And I think they'll grow from this one as well. Get more guys in there. Yeah, we wanted to get more guys in the last game. And it was weird how it happened in the second half. But we're going to have to play a lot more people in every game going forward. Not just this week. I'm talking about for the rest of the year. Because it's – as I mentioned the other day, eight straight games with no open dates is a pretty good stretch. And we're going to have to have – hopefully we don't have any injuries or what have you. But we're going to have to get a lot of guys ready. Early scout on UT Martin offensively and defensively. Yeah, I've known Coach Simpson for a long time. Got a lot of respect for him. They're a really good 1AAFCS program. They've won their league a bunch of times in the last four or five years. They played Oklahoma State pretty solid, who was in our league last year. They went out there and it was a pretty close game for most of the game. And this is a big game for them. So we got to be ready to get their best effort. They do a lot of RPOs. They're very well coached. He does a great job. And he's been there 20 years. And so his program is kind of entrenched into his methods and how they go about doing their stuff. I got two questions. First, I don't think I've ever seen a game where a quarterback was sacked five times and running for his life the whole time and did more damage. And that, I assume, came down to his attainment. How do you fix that? Yeah. Gosh, Bob, if I yelled contain one more time, my head would explode. I think I was yelling it for three quarters. And some of it was the kid was just making a great play, and some of it was just our angles or our lack of awareness that, hey, this guy's pretty fast, you got to get a little bit wider. So you can't let a guy that's dangerous, you know, extend plays and break contain that much. And so we obviously got to learn our lesson from that standpoint because we're going to play some mobile quarterbacks and they'll make you look silly like he did at times during that game. You just mentioned a minute ago about the second half kind of sitting on the floor. That's not your DNA. No. I mean, you ran the ball 61 times and threw 14. And if I look back at it, there was probably a couple times in the second half where I said, okay, we're going to run and get a first down. Well, we had opportunities to take a shot and I should have took a shot, you know. And like, you know, trust our protection and our wideouts and our quarterbacks and try to get a pass play going right there. So, you know, we kind of played it probably maybe too close to the vest, you know, in the second half with that lead. And that was just, you know, trying to calm us down a little bit, get our defense some rest. But, no, I think we could have been – I could have been more aggressive. We could have been more aggressive in the second half at times, especially in the third quarter. I think we only had two possessions in the third quarter. On those two possessions, I don't know when it was backed up I think, but we could have been more aggressive in one of those two possessions. Was any of that about not wanting to open up the playbook entirely for the rest of the season because it's week one? No, I don't ever. You know what, that's a fair question. I've never, ever thought about any game like that. You know what I mean? Like, we don't want to show – now there have been end of the games where you had a comfortable lead and you're like just running the ball out. But even then, you're just doing it to get the game over with. Not so much like we're going to hold this back. You know, what we have in the game plan, if we're being ultra conservative, it's probably because we're just trying to win the game, give our defense a little bit of a break and then, you know, go on to the next thing. Coach, going back to Hawkins, his hands on third down, but he was really good in the first half on third down running and passing. What did you think of his decisions, his execution? Yeah, I thought he was – again, it was his first – even though he's got a little bit of experience, it's his first start in our system and his first start here for WVU. So, you know, he's like a rookie so to speak, but he's not – he's a very conscientious guy. I think he learns from everything that happens out there, good and bad. And he was pretty composed out there. I think, you know, I got a lot of confidence in him and the rest of our quarterbacks that we can do more things. And we're going to have to do that, you know, starting this week. Not to critique him, but the turnover, do you like that rule, touch back, giving it to the defense? No, that's a good point because it seems a little unfair that, you know, it's actually turnover and a touch back and it goes to 20 the other way. But again, we've – you know, we tell our guys, you don't ever reach for the goal line unless it's fourth and goal and you're going to be short of it, then you're in desperation to reach it. Other than that, you never extend the ball out. So, you know, he'll learn from that. Would you tweak that rule to, I don't know, re-spot it or just not automatically give it to the defense? Yeah, I think maybe, you know, I don't know how you fix it, but it seems like that's a harsh enough rule to make an impact on your players. They'll realize, oh my gosh, that's a pretty costly deal there. Last night on your radio show about getting some of these players under two-year contracts. Can you talk a little bit about how important a stable and a successful program in the NIL remedy share era? Yeah, I know. Okay, can you imagine if you're an NFL franchise and every one of your 53-man roster guys was in the last year of their contract and they become a free agent? I can imagine the stress that the organization and the general managers and the ownership would be under. Like we got to sign the whole team back every – you know, that's just – that would never happen. It's crazy, right? So in college basically you – we have that scenario in a lot of places. And so more schools are trying to get guys, okay, we've got the right guy. You know, we picked the right guy, he picked the right place. You know, we want him to have his whole college career here. You know, can we lock him down for the next year or two and have a two-year deal or a three-year deal? But you got to have some funds to do that and you got to – you can't promise something that you're not going to have and all that. But we're slowly building toward that, which is what I'm very grateful for. And then we've kind of got a plan to try to – before the portal comes open, whenever it comes open, that we'll have the guys locked down, you know, stay in Mountaineers hopefully throughout their entire college career. Whether that's a two-year deal, three-year deals, you know, we're working on that as we speak. Some of the younger guys, does it give you a little bit more confidence in developing in them a little bit more fully or giving them opportunities early knowing that, hey – Well, it's not so much about giving – you know, when you're paying the guys, I've said this before, you got to make sure you're paying the right guys and paying the right guys the right amount. And if that has proven to be true, whether it's a small sample size, two or three games, or it's a whole season that you've shown that, then both sides – I didn't say sides, I said on the same side. Both folks got to get the deal done, you know, before the transfer portal opens up and get them locked in. And to me, you know, most of the ages are very good about that. I think most of the players, if they like the program, are receptive to that. And so that's kind of the plan that a lot of people are going to do going forward. So you can have that developmental piece actually take hold better. It's hard to develop a guy one year, but you can a little bit. But when you've got a guy for two or three years, you know, his development is not only good for him, but it's good for the program because guys that have played in your system for two or three years become like coaches teaching the new guys that come in. And so that's kind of what – we're always going to be a large developmental program here. We're going to get guys and then they're going to be better their second year, then better than that their third year. And if they're here four years, then boy they're going to be like a coach on the field. Status of Prince Strong? Yeah, Prince – hopefully he'll be back. Maybe for next week's game he'll be out again this week. But, you know, he's got a chance to play in two weeks. We'll see where that's at. Any word? I mean, you're still waiting on him? No, still waiting on – ruling on that before we go ahead with that one. This transfer that you might be adding late from Georgia, Ja'Cory Thomas I believe the name is? Yeah, there's still a lot more still to be – it's kind of like Jason Chambers, you know, there's still another I think court hearing or something that's going on and some more things that got to happen before he's officially going to get ready on the depth charter. You know, he hasn't practiced, he hasn't done anything yet. He just got in town yesterday. So, we're going to put that on hold so to speak. Darius is definitely the leader? Yeah, waiting to have surgery. We want to have it as soon as possible, but it's an extensive surgery to – there's a lot of fixing that's got to do. He was having a great camp and he's playing well and he's a really, really, really hard working guy. You know, so he'll – I feel 100% confident that he'll be able to come back. It won't be this year, but you know, he'll take this as a challenge and come back hopefully healthy in a year. Well, a couple of guys that have taken some reps, like Toby Hastrop and Jeremiah Johnson, two new guys, are now going to get a bigger opportunity to maybe fill that role a little bit. So we'll see what they do starting this week. What's that? How did the freshman last tackle hold him? He played pretty well. There was a couple of freshman mistakes in there. But for a true freshman playing for the first time, I was really pretty proud of him. He's a very, very competitive guy. And you know, he's very, very conscientious as well. So, I thought Kevin played – we thought he played pretty well. He flipped, got back up and then pancaked someone. To me, as a former offensive lineman, that's like a special type of driver. You were a former lineman? I would have never guessed that. I wasn't big enough to play big things. But just can you talk about his drive and his dedication on plays like that to finish the play through the whistle? Yeah, he's – well, we knew about it. You can watch the guy on film in high school and you can see how aggressive he is. And then we had him at camp. And camp was when I really saw him. He was still committed to Penn State. And we had him at camp. And man, he was – sometimes when you're a big time guy like that in camp, you just kind of chill. And he was the first guy in line to take reps. I mean, you had to pull him out of there because he wanted to take every rep. So his competitiveness was there. And it was just like his dad, Tim. So, you know, he kind of was in the family kind of trait, right? So, after the camp I was like, God, is there any chance at all we might get this guy? So we stayed after him a little bit and fortunately he's come. And he's in the mindset you think all your players want, is that he's going to be – he's a good player now. But because he loves football so much and because he's so competitive, he'll get better every year, especially with Coach Trickett's coaching and all that. So, you know, he'll do well this year. But he's going to get better and better every year in our system. Would you be cautious of the carries for Cam Cook and for Michael Hopkins, I mean 30 and 20 respectively? Yeah, I didn't – you know, it didn't seem like that many. I was surprised when I heard about 30. Cam wasn't complaining. I don't think he will. But we will – inevitably you're going to have to play more than just the two running backs. So Amare's going to get a lot of carries and then we got to get the third guy, whoever that is, you know, more reps. Because hopefully it's not like last year where we were playing five or six because of injury. But, you know, the carries, I don't really keep a track on it, but I can kind of tell if he's – if they're a little winded or a little bit tired, we need to be able to roll and keep fresh guys in there. But we're just going to roll until we win the game kind of deal. I don't really worry about that carry stuff. Last night Chris Talley actually tweaked his hamstring. Yeah, in warm-ups somehow. Did that throw a wrench into the running back plan and kind of – do you know how long that it might take for him? A little bit because he was going to be the next guy in probably to get some reps. So Martavius Boswell is probably that next guy now. But Lawrence Autry has been hurt and now Lawrence is healthy, so he'll get – so today Bos and Autry will get the third running back reps and we'll try to get them ready to go. Because we got to have at least three ready to go. What's going on with Chris Talley? It's week to week with the hamstring thing. Since he opened the door on Thomas, is the fact that he didn't sign an NFL contract a difference for you in pursuing him based on the Big 12 and the college? You know, that's a good question. Yeah, I think it was like you don't want to like put all the time and effort in bringing somebody in and they got no chance of being eligible or what have you. So it had to be somebody that, hey, one you can get in school at this date and two there's not going to be this question on whether he's eligible or whatever. It's got to be something that's got to be approved by all parties involved. And so that's why I said it's got a chance to be approved by our parties involved and he's the right guy, you know, and the right fit for us as well. Then we can look into it and that's basically what happened. Specific position for him, Richard, to play multiple spots? Safety. Yeah, we got three – we basically had three safety positions. And yeah, how much can you learn, right? It depends on how much you can learn in a quickly, short period of time. I think Matt's a returning bonus to us. Yeah, I think it was solid. You know, the return thing, we missed one block there. He had a little bit of a chance. I thought he caught the bell well. He's just a good football player. I mean, even him as a freshman, there's sometimes there's going to be freshman moments and we've got to remember he's just a true freshman. But Matt's got a really good feel for the game. You saw the one great play he made on kicking – keeping the ball in the one-yard line. You know, he's – you know, he plays on just about every special teams and played some safety for us as well. So I'm excited for him for the future. Oh, I probably have done this so long, I'm sure I've had a few that done it. Matt's one hit. If we wanted to put a package in for him in offense, I bet he could learn it in three days. I mean, that's kind of like the football – you know, he's a coach's kid, and usually coach's kids learn pretty quickly. He's one of those. Good? Okay, thank you.