Rodriguez: Roster turnover slowing WVU program progression
AP Photo/Gregory Payan
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia football is coming off its second straight loss. On the surface, it’s a 45-42 defeat to Iowa State, where the defense allowed well over 500 yards of offense for the second straight week. WVU is 3-2 on the season, still above .500, but 0-2 in the conference.
Digging in a little deeper, if you look at the head coaches in both of the losses, they have something in common: both are in Year 1 of a rebuild. Eric Morris took the Oklahoma State job in the offseason from North Texas, and Jimmy Rogers went to Iowa State from Washington State, really late into the cycle.
Last year, Rodriguez had the excuse that he was in Year 1. The “being in Year 1” and “not having time to recruit” excuse is out the window in Year 2.
Rodriguez believes last season was more like Year 0, though, and this year is his first full year with the program, with all the roster turnover. On offense and defense, you can count the number of returning starters on your hand. Rodriguez doesn’t think back-to-back reboots were avoidable either, with what he is trying to achieve.
Although Rodriguez might’ve filled holes with veteran players, most are in their first year of the system.
“We got 10 new starters,” Rodriguez said. “We got to start all over again. Sometimes, as coaches, we got to sit back and say, ‘Oh, understand that they might be 20 years old, but they’ve only been in this system for less than a year.’ We got to coach accordingly.”
It becomes even more prominent that Rodriguez and the program are struggling with roster churning when you look at his last few head coaching stops. When Rodriguez was at WVU the first time, he went 3-8. The following season, Rodriguez coached the team to a 9-4 record and had the program competitive the rest of his time here. Michigan not so much, but in his stop at Arizona, he had similar second-year success. Both were long before the transfer portal.
“I think probably the biggest change, and this is not just us, is that the turnover in rosters is so different now,” Rodriguez said. “I always say we’ve got to be a developmental program, but in a year like last year and a year like this year, when you’re having so much turnover, and you’re replacing 10 starters, or whatever it is, your system has to be able to adapt to that quicker. You’re not having guys grow up in your program.”
Rodriguez isn’t alone with this issue. Until the College Sports Act is passed, where athletes can transfer once without a penalty, every single year a player is at risk of leaving. Coaches around the country, and Rodriguez included, have started handing out multi-year deals to stop player departures, but we’ve seen those can be disputed.
Rodriguez pointed out Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita, who the Mountaineers play this weekend, is a rarity because he’s been with the Wildcats all five years. He’s grown and mastered the system, which is why they are 4-1.
“By the time a guy’s in your program three years or four years or something, he’s almost like a coach,” Rodriguez said. “He kind of knows what’s going on. He knows how to fix it and all that. Whereas now it’s almost like you’re teaching freshmen, even though they’re not all freshmen. I think that’s probably the biggest change.”
Rodriguez has built the program now to be developmental. He added a big JUCO and high school class and younger transfers, so Rodriguez won’t be dealing with a lot of roster turnover. The problem is getting them to stay, and that it takes more time.
Back in the day, time wasn’t an issue, but now with teams like Indiana winning in two years, it begs the question for fans: “Why not us?” Rodriguez believes, even if it might look like it after back-to-back losses, the program is progressing to get to that point.
“I think we’ve made some steps forward, but I also think we have not made some steps forward in other parts of the program,” Rodriguez said. “But I’m not going to panic, five games into the second year, especially when I knew we had to do a total reboot two years in a row.”