MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia used the 12th of its 15 spring practices Saturday as a majority scrimmage to get a more extensive evaluation of personnel on tape and continue creating competition.
“This is not the end all be all, but there were a couple it was really important for today, and next week as far as their status is concerned to see if they took another step,” WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez said. “Until I watch the film, I don’t know.”
With one week remaining until spring football concludes with the Gold-Blue Showcase on April 5, Rodriguez believes it’s important and upstanding for the coaching staff to be forthcoming with players as to their status in the present and what it may look like moving forward.
“You have to be honest with your players and tell them where they stand. We call these meeting rooms the truth rooms,” Rodriguez said. “We’ll tell them where they’re at on the depth chart, what we think they need to work on and what they’re good at. It’s not all negative, but you’re going against each other, so it’s still hard to evaluate not going against an outside team.”
Rodriguez noted earlier this week the Mountaineers’ need for more depth at most positions, citing virtually every spot but quarterback and long snapper as areas the team is likely to look at adding through the transfer portal when it opens again for a 10-day window on April 16.
WVU is almost certain to lose at least several players that decide to transfer next month, and with the expectation that roster sizes will be reduced to 105 for the 2025 season, film evaluation at this stage is perhaps as important as ever.
“The reason we ended spring on the 5th instead of the 12th is so we have a week of meetings with the players to let them know where they’re at,” Rodriguez said. “Starting on the 7th, for the next five days, we’ll have meetings with players and kind of tell them where they’re at. We don’t have to determine the 105 until the week of the first game. We’ll tell them where they’re at, and if we suggest they go in the portal, they have time to get in the portal when it opens if they need to find a place.
“Some of them are going to be really hard, because they’re doing everything right and competing, but we don’t have room at that spot or position to keep them. That’s why I think it’s crazy we have to cut them down.”
With an abundance of roster turnover and more to come in the near future, Rodriguez believes increasing depth is of great importance as it forces players to earn spots on the depth chart.
“I’m unhappy with the depth I guess, but I think every coach is unhappy with their depth at this point in the spring,” he said. “But I like a lot of the guys’ effort and some of the guys have continued to get better. But we do have to increase our competition at most positions. I hope it comes from a lot of guys within, but it’s inevitably probably going to be a few spots that come from guys that aren’t here yet.”
As for what specifically goes into individual evaluations, Rodriguez is a firm believer the tape tells the truth.
There will be plenty of it on every player participating throughout the spring.
“With the video technology you have, every player has an individual cut up of 1-on-1 drills, 7-on-7 drills, live team drills — good, bad and indifferent,” Rodriguez said. “However many plays it is, maybe 35 or 40 plays, that cut up will be the snapshot of what he’s done while we’re here. Some of the coaches are going to meet with our players and watch that, but all of us as coaches will evaluate those individual cut ups. That’s going to start next week.
“Every quarterback we have, we’ll cut up. I’ll watch it with the whole coaching staff and give our thoughts on it to come up with where those guys are at on the depth chart. If it’s a guy maybe on the edge or whatever, we have to make a decision. I don’t want the decision to be made on hey he’s a good guy. This has to be a football-type decision of what we see every day and what we see on those cut ups.”