Rich Rodriguez: ‘If We’re Keeping Score, We’re Trying to Whip Your Ass’

“People talk about competitiveness or whatever. If we’re keeping score, we’re trying to whip your ass. That’s kind of the way it is,” said a clearly energized Rich Rodriguez after WVU’s first spring practice.

Rodriguez was honest about the work ahead and that his team is far from a finished product, but he emphasized that he likes the effort he’s seeing from his team. And high effort is what Rodriguez wants to see right now. Well, high effort and signs of the “hard edge” mentality.

Rodriguez even explained that he’s starting to be able to determine how competitive his players are. He simply has to have players with a drive to win at any cost.

“If I have guys on the team that ain’t got that mentality, they aren’t going to last. Guys that are non-competitive, they aren’t going to make it,” Rodriguez said bluntly.

“That doesn’t make them a bad person, but I want guys that will crawl over top of people to win. If you’re not a competitive guy you’re going to stand out in the wrong way,” he added.

“I want guys that will crawl over top of people to win.”

While Rodriguez is confident he can teach a scheme or route, he knows he can’t force a competitive mindset on anyone.

“Once you get it, you get it. And you have it. And when you don’t have it and everybody else around you has it…then you stand out in the wrong way,” Rodriguez said.

Simply put, Rodriguez, who has pressure to make the Mountaineers great again, knows he needs a team full of players with a “hard edge” mentality in order to win. It’s a requirement for any player or coach in order to have success under Rodriguez.

“When we had success here, wherever it’s because we had really good players that had that kind of competitive hard edge mentality and once they get it they kind of have it forever.”

For a related story, Rich Rodriguez explained how he uses tight ends shows how his offense has changed over the years.