Rich Rodriguez Admits Flaws in Plan Against OSU: ‘I Got to Have a Better Plan’

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – WVU football head coach Rich Rodriguez took the blame for a defensive performance that gave up 609 yards of offense to Oklahoma State on Saturday night.

He said he “failed” to have an adequate plan to stop OSU after their 41-24 loss.

“I failed to have us like, okay, what’s plan A, what’s plan B, and plan C? Normally we have that pretty solidly locked down, but evidently today that wasn’t the case,” Rodriguez said in his postgame press conference.

That was not just his message to the media, as he claimed to tell the team that as well.

“I said I got to have a better plan as a head coach. I got to make sure we have a better plan. And I don’t want this game— one game’s not going to define us. We got a lot to learn and we got a lot of guys playing for the first time. Typically we take 24 hours to move on to the next one. I don’t want to take that long. Go about 12 hours and then start getting ready for the next one,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez gave an explanation that WVU has many new players on both sides of the football, and that it has been a process to solidify what the team is successful at. According to Rodriguez, the process is ongoing, which he also classifies as a failure on his part.

“I said this before, we’re still figuring out what we do well on offense and defense, I think that’s still part of it. I don’t want to throw everything out because they got a lot of new players, we got a lot of new players, we got a lot of new players playing a new system,” Rodriguez added.

“And so we gotta still figure out what our guys do well. We should have it down by now, in my opinion. That’s poor coaching if we don’t. Evidently, today we still didn’t figure out what our guys can do well because we did not do things well today.”

WVU allowed 389 passing yards and 220 rushing yards and did not tally a single sack. Sophomore running back Caleb Hawkins had 180 yards and a touchdown on the ground and junior wide receiver Wyatt Young had 192 yards receiving with a touchdown as well.

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