During this Monday's edition of The Rich Rodriguez Show, West Virginia's head coach did not call out defensive coordinator Zac Alley directly, nor did he imply any major issues between himself and his top defensive assistant. But while discussing what went wrong against Oklahoma State, Rodriguezdid deliver one quotethat is hard to see as anything but a criticism of his team's defensive strategy.
"What can your players do? If you're asking them to do something that they're not physically capable of doing, then you're in the wrong," Rodriguez said. "And I'm not saying that's all what happened on Saturday night, but some of that happened. And we gotta fix that."
Is Zac Alley asking too much of West Virginia's defense
It is hard to take Rodriguez's statement here as anything as a massive indictment on what Alley attempted to do against the Cowboys. Rodriguez made it clear multiple times after Saturday's loss to Oklahoma State thathe thought the team's defensive plan had failed, and that it was on him as the head coach to make sure the Mountaineers have a plan that can succeed.
We've also donea bit of a deep-diveinto exactly what West Virginia's strategy appeared to be, and how it ended up not just failing in its goal, but also backfiring in other ways. And when you hear Rich Rodriguez say that players were, at least at times, being asked to do things they weren't physically capable of pulling off, it drives home the fact that Zac Alley absolutely must do better moving forward.
In some ways, it looked like West Virginia might not have the caliber of athletes needed to match up with some of Oklahoma State's NFL-caliber skill players. But the truth of the matter might that be even some of that falls on to the scheme that West Virginia devised for the game, and players were put into positions that exacerbated any mismatches in athleticism or talent.
Regardless of that, the fact of that matter is that what happened on Saturday was an unacceptable defensive display. and both Rodriguez and Alley seemed to understand that. But at the same time, Rodriguez has also said he believes the issues he saw are ones that can be fixed, and hoepfully, West Virginia fans can expect such problems to be solved as the season moves on.
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