AT THE PODIUM — WVU head football coach Rich Rodriguez speaks after practice. - BlueGoldNews

MORGANTOWN — One of the unique aspects of having Rich Rodriguez back as West Virginia’s football coach is the heavy emphasis upon catch phrases to encapsulate what he is trying to accomplish with his program.

Playing with a “hard edge” has emerged as the catch phrase that the public has picked up on the most, perhaps a reaction to the Neal Brown era of Mountaineer football that preceded Rodriguez’s return, a time when the public did not sense the killer instinct in his teams that Rodriguez’s teams had during his first seven-year term.

Perhaps because he is far more aware of the business end of the coaching profession, Rodriguez saw to it at the very end of his new contract that a clause was included under the heading “Understanding With Respect to Certain Personal Indicia” that granted him the right to market his mottos and fund the program through sales and licensing.

Make no doubt that there will be sales of T-shirts, hoodies and the like that bear the “Hard Edge” slogan, but perhaps far more telling to the success of his program may be two carryover catch phrases from his first time around, those being “Spot The Ball” and “Play Like Your Hair’s On Fire.”

See, as much as Rodriguez is trying to create the rough-and-tumble “Hard Edge” image of his team, in the end, it will be the offensive tempo with which this team plays that defines it.

The quick-twitch approach that includes lining up quickly, running the snap quickly, having fast runners at the receiver spots and the running back spots are designed to wear down an opponent whose conditioning drills aren’t geared for such tempo and to make them pay for every missed assignment, missed tackle or unprotected gap.

“Our goal is to be the fastest playing team in the country,” Rodriguez said on Thursday after his first live action in pads which included tackling the quarterbacks being fair game.

“I don’t know what the last couple of year’s stats were, but they might be as high as they could have because if we got a two-score lead in the fourth quarter, we’re milking the clock, taking the play clock down to two or one seconds.”

Normally, the Mountaineers were getting plays off in about 17 seconds … that’s line up, make the call, make the read and snap the ball.

But in those last few years, WVU had big leads a lot, and therefore, led in those games in which they were slowing the pace, not trying to wear the other team down but more to just play keep away until the Mountaineers’ musket was fired off.

“Our stat per se might not have reflected playing that fast, but our goal is to be the fastest playing team in the country as far as the ball getting snapped goes.”

This is really what shapes the entire image of the team. It demands first that the team is in shape to go at the required pace. Second, it screams out for the depth, trying to keep fresh legs in the game.

Jack Bicknell, Rodriguez’s veteran offensive line coach, puts it this way.

“We want to play a lot of people,” Bicknell admitted. “When I was at Ole Miss (with Rodriguez as offensive coordinator), I played with seven offensive linemen. It’s hard to get 10, which I’d like to have. It does a couple of things: it keeps everybody into it. It’s not just the five guys who are starting and thinking it’s only for me. The backups are like, if I can get to the top seven or eight I can play.

“You see defensive lines substituting back and forth, so why can’t we? If you get into the fourth quarter with a lot of tempo, you’re pretty beat up.”

“If we have 80 guys we can win with, I’ll play them,” Rodriguez says. “I want to play as many players as I can.”

That gives second and even third-string players a goal to go after in realistic playing time. It also helps the strength staff in its effort to push players to their ultimate conditioning. And, it also keeps the back up players’ attention on the sidelines for the call to go into a game that may come at any time.”

“A couple of guys got to get in better shape because of the tempo we play with,” Bicknell said. “If you’re not in shape, you’re never going to look good.”

It even affects game-planning.

“Everything we talk about as far as plays go is if we can’t do it at a fast tempo, we don’t put it in,” Rodriguez said.

Now, one might think that a group of 300-pound behemoths on the offensive line might resist playing at tempo, but Bicknell says that’s not the case at all.

“I love it. It’s probably one of the most O-line-friendly offenses you can get,” Bicknell said. “You get tired, you get other guys in there. And you practice with tempo; you get in shape. There’s nothing that happens on Saturday night that doesn’t happen during the week here in practice.”

NOTES

Rodriguez saw improvement in the defense during a live tackling scrimmage on Thursday, but felt the offense was a bit sluggish getting off the mark … The team couldn’t scrimmage as much as they would like because they are down to just a couple of running backs due to some of the others being dinged up … Saturday will be a big-time, important scrimmage, just a couple of weeks from opening day, Rodriguez hoping to get 100 or so plays in … And if you’re looking for a two-deep, forget it. Rodriguez says it might be 1:59 on opening day with the kickoff at 2 o’clock before he has one. Besides, if he does have one, “why would I tell you?” he said. And, it isn’t because he doesn’t want Robert Morris to know it. “I want people to buy tickets,” he said, WVU having already sold 32,000 season tickets, the most since 2013.