u/hammer_it_out

by Joe Smith

If you drove by Milan Puskar Stadium in Morgantown on Monday and saw some hulking Power 4 linebackers picking up garbage in the stands, don’t be alarmed. It’s just a part of the fallout  from Saturday, when the West Virginia Mountaineers hosted their Gold-Blue Spring Festival to cap spring practices

The event featured a hefty dose of scrimmaging between two intrasquad scrimmages drafted prior to the game. The Mountaineers kept score between the two teams – albeit in a fashion that didn’t strictly follow the scoring rules you’ll see during a real game – and head coach Rich Rodriguez wanted to give players some extra motivation, as the biggest thing he wanted to see was a ‘hard edge’ in the players’ intensity levels. They ended up living up to those expectations.

“I was [happy],” Rodriguez said. “I think the competitive part, going blue against white – I had thought, okay I’ll give the winners steak and the losers hot dogs, but I'm like, that’s not enough separation. So I said okay, the losing team has got to clean up the stadium, and that got their juices going.”

“But we have a great cleanup crew, so it might already be clean by the time Monday gets here. So we’ll figure out some way to reward the winners and punish the losers. That competitiveness, when we first did it a week and a half ago, I could see that going through. These guys love to compete, if nothing else.”

A small but still sizable group of fans, listed 18,475 by the program, turned out for the festivities, which was followed by a concert by country star Jake Owen (not Luke Owen, as the PA announcer for the afternoon suggested twice). Who ended up "winning" didn't really prove important, as there's only so much you can take away from this kind of scrimmage. But all in all, Rodriguez thought it was a great finish to a spring that he seems pretty satisfied with.

“It was a nice atmosphere, we had a good crowd, and I think our players really enjoyed it,” Rodriguez said. “It was pretty competitive. I’m not sure we executed really well at times, but I thought they played hard. But all in all I thought it was a pretty good spring. I think we found some things we wanted to find out.”

“I think we’ve probably got some more competition at most of the positions. We’re getting a little bit deeper, which is a good thing. I think for lack of, everybody uses this word, culture, but I like where the culture is at, and I think it will continue to get increased and be exactly where I want it to be.”

When pressed on things he wasn’t fully happy with and what he needs to see from the team in the interim between the end of spring practices and the first game this September, he highlighted the team’s physical conditioning, but shrugged it off a bit as “no team is in shape in spring ball.” But one thing he is really hoping to see is his team take the next step in understanding why they’re being asked to execute calls, schemes, and strategies certain ways. 

“I still think our guys may know what to do but they may not know why they're doing it and I think that's a challenge for both our players and our staff, as I want our guys to know why they do this  in a certain play or a certain call,” Rodriguez said. “I know we’re not there yet, and that’s not just quarterbacks, that's everyone.”

“I think it’s critical all the time,” added defensive coordinator Zac Alley. “The situation dictates how you play things. The way we may play a call on 1st & 10 is not the same as 3rd and 1. If the ball is on the five yard line, it’s different than if it’s on the minus ten…just having the guys understand why we do what we do both situationally in the game and what call do we like in these scenarios.”

But Alley also felt like he’s seen the players in the locker room step up and take the initiative to get to that level, even when it means they’re putting in extra work. It’s given him a sense of the culture fully settling in the staff’s second offseason with the program, as Rodriguez alluded to himself.

“Absolutely,” Alley said. “One thing I’d say about our players this year is I have a lot of respect for who they are. I think the character of the individuals is really special. We have a lot of guys who are bought into who we are and what we’re doing. They’re compelled to be here and be committed to the program”

“And it’s encouraging to see that, because when you walk by the meeting rooms and now there’s five, six guys in there on a regular basis, you know that understanding is coming along…We finish practice and Geimere Latimer and Andrew Powdrell beat me in the room. That way they play well, because they understand what’s coming and they have an understanding of the stress of the call. From that standpoint, our guys have really stepped up.”

by Joe Smith

MORGANTOWN, W.VA – The era of the spring game appears to be a thing of the past for the West Virginia Mountaineers – but that doesn’t mean fans won’t be getting a good, hard look at their team this spring. It just means things look a little different.

There’s no traditional spring game where the team is divvied up and will play each other for four quarters like it’s a Saturday afternoon in September – the roster will be divided up for an intrasquad scrimmage which is scheduled to last an hour and a half, though head coach Rich Rodriguez has been a bit vague about the exact format and how it will play out.

And that scrimmage will be going in the direction of just one endzone, with the teams trading off possessions, because there will be a stage in one endzone. That’s due to a scheduled concert from country music star Jake Owen after the scrimmage, which will cap off what the program is calling the ‘Spring Festival’ – which will also include pre-game festivities similar to what you might find at a carnival – food trucks, inflatables, photo booths, caricature and balloon artists, and appearances from the Mountaineer mascot and the WVU spirit squads.

“I think it’s twofold,” Rodriguez said. “One, we want folks to come here. We have great fans, but we want folks to come here and buy season tickets and have a little bit of a feel, if they’ve never been to a game, have a little bit of a feel of what it’s all about. We have great fans, but we want more.”

But don’t expect the festival to be lacking in actual football. The Mountaineers have over 70 new players for the second straight year, and with no spring portal window, the roster now will look quite similar in the fall – with only a small group of players who were not early enrollees set to join the roster. So the Mountaineers are still evaluating talent, and this scrimmage will be a big data point in that evaluation.

“The scrimmage, we’ll probably go more live than I would traditionally since we have so many new players," Rodriguez said. “If we had a seasoned team of 18 starters coming back or whatever, I’d probably have those guys not take a lot of reps and we wouldn't go as long of a scrimmage. But because I’m still evaluating and we’re still trying to figure out whose what and where, it’ll be a little bit more competitive than what we would have done in the past.”

“I’m watching every guy. Every play on offense, every play on defense. Myself, I will scrutinize every position…I’m not trying to avoid the question, but scrimmages are more scrutinized than just a regular practice, and in that regard, I’ll watch it probably five times before next week.”

The players on the team? Well, many newcomers are excited to get their first taste of what a big crowd at Milan Puskar Stadium looks like, and it seems everyone is chomping at the bit to go live and hit someone in a scrimmage setting – and Rodriguez assured the media everyone except quarterback Scotty Fox Jr. and potentially quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr. will be going live.

“I mean, I'm just excited, you know, to play football in front of some fans,” said defensive back Andrew Powdrell, who transferred into the program this offseason. “You know, we've been practicing, but you know, not too many people are there watching. But to, you know, practice in front of people, go live, tackle somebody. I’m going to have some family members there. So, it's definitely going to be fun.”

And with Rodriguez locked in for evaluations during the last session he’ll have with the team this spring, he’s hoping to see progress from every player at every position – but above all else, he’ll be looking for a bit of a ‘hard edge’ in his team.

“I just want to see a certain level of competitiveness that we stress,” Rodriguez said. “Whether you want to call it hard edge or whatever you want to call it. You know, everyone is playing hard, everyone is competing, nobody is loafing, and they’re enjoying playing the game in front of a good crowd.” 

“That’s one reason why we did [a scrimmage], to try and make it some kind of competitive situation. When we scrimmaged the first time with them, I was pleased with it because the intensity was what I thought it should be. And certainly it should be that way Saturday.”

The festivities will kick off at 9:30 AM on Saturday at Milan Puskar Stadium in Morgantown, with the gates opening at 11 AM and the scrimmage beginning at Noon. Following the conclusion of the action around 1:30 PM, fans with access will be allowed on the field, with Jake Owen taking the stage at 2:30 PM. Admission to the event is free.

"I know our players are really looking forward to it, our Blue-White [scrimmage], and I've talked to a lot of fans that are really excited about coming up here and seeing some of the new guys and some of the activities we have," Rodriguez said.

"If you're a Mountaineer fan and you can make it this Saturday, come on up here and check us out, and check out all the things we got going on. Bring your whole family, bring your kids."