WVU Football
Rich Rodriguez Gets Honest About Continuous Defensive Issues
Even though West Virginia snapped their losing streak and beat Cincinnati, the defense endured arguably its worst overall performance of the season. WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez knows the defense has to be much better moving forward if the Mountaineers can complete a respectable season.
However, he’s also willing to admit he’s still not sure how to fix the unit. Rodriguez opened up about the latest coaches meeting, one that included trying to determine why the defense has struggled so much after a solid start to the season and what can be done to improve enough to compete throughout the rest of the season.
“We have no identity. There’s nothing that we’re hanging our hat on, and so we got to find that the best we can,” admitted Rodriguez on his radio show on Monday night.
West Virginia allowed Cincinnati to rack up 622 yards of offense, the most the Mountaineers have surrendered so far and the second time an opponent supposed 600. This came after the WVU defense let Arizona hang 45 of their 52 total points on them the week prior, which followed giving up 577 yards and 45 points at Iowa State and 609 yards and 41 points against Oklahoma State.
For some optimism, Rodriguez did throw some praise the defense’s way for stepping up in the final minutes of a back and forth game against the Bearcats.
“It looked like the same story, right? I mean, they scored and we couldn’t get over the hump,” Rodriguez said in the postgame press conference. “We tied up and then they’d score and we tied up and then they scored and it looked like, ah, the same old thing. And then we got it to the fourth down and then almost blocked it.”
But even with his frustration at an all-time high, Rich Rodriguez still believes in his defensive staff, namely Alley. Just three days after labeling a question about Alley’s job “fair” and leaving the door open to consider a change in play calling, Rodriguez offered his public support for the higher ranking coach on his staff.
“He did a really good job at Oklahoma as a d coordinator and those were against some pretty good teams in the SEC,” said Rodriguez before referencing Alley’s past success and track record of turning rough patches around.
Find more coverage of Rich Rodriguez and the WVU football program at WV Sports Now.
