With the West Virginia Mountaineers just over a week away from beginning their regular season, the preseason is wrapping up. And fans might notice that Rich Rodriguez has seemed a little bit calmer during his press availability this year than he did during fall camp ahead of the 2025 season.
And it turns out there might be a good reason for that fact. After quips during the previous week about the team "pillow fighting" in practice inspired a question about the team's intensity levels during his last presser ahead of Week 1, Rodriguezindicated he's pretty happy with where things are.
“It’s been about the same. It’s never been bad. It’s always been pretty even, which is good. Now, we started off, and there were moments where we were soft, you know, pillow fights, and the situational awareness is not where I want it to be all the time, but it’s not like it’s horrible. It’s not like guys are messing around on the sidelines or whatever," Rodriguez said.
"It’s just the level of intensity that I want to see out of them all the time in practice is always going to probably be a work in progress. But for the most part, these guys have been very conscientious. You tell them something, they pay attention. They’re on time; they work pretty hard."
Why Rich Rodriguez's 'intensity' comments are good news for WVU football fans
The Mountaineersseemed to not playwith the 'hard edge' that Rich Rodriguez expects from his team last year, and he made the clear at multiple different points during the season, starting with the start of preseason camp and continuing through the end of the season. So the fact that Rodriguez seems much more calm regarding the intensity at this stage is a very positive sign for the West Virginia.
And there was another quote earlier in camp where Rodriguez indicatedhe was happywith how things were progressing compared to where the team was last year. Granted, this quip came within a week and a half of camp beginning, but it shows that there is some consistency in the idea that Rodriguez feels like he has a better team entering the 2026 season.
“I was just trying to think about it myself,” Rodriguez said. “I was looking at our scripts from last year and this year and how we’re practicing, what we’re doing each period. I’m also trying to think, ‘Where were we at?’ Was I happy one week in? I don’t think I’ve ever been happy in 29 years one week in, two weeks in, four weeks in.”
”If I look back at my notes like, ‘Man, I’m ticked off after week one because we hadn’t made more progress,' that would probably be the same thing I said 29 other times. I’d like to be further along right now, but if I looked at my notes, we’re probably further along than we were in the past. In fact, I know we are, so I can’t complain.”
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