Over eight months after an embarrassing loss to Texas Tech brought a close to the 2025 season, the West Virginia Mountaineers are back on the gridiron for the start of fall camp ahead of the upcoming 2026 camapign.
The Mountaineers had their first practice on Wednesday, and afterward, Rich Rodriguez addressed the media for the first time (outside of Big 12 Media Days) since the end of spring practices. And while things might not have went bad, per se, it also seems that the first day fell short of what Rodriguez had hoped to see.
"You know, I have to watch the film to have a true barometer on how today went. I didn't think it was great. I didn't think it as awful," Rodriguez said.
"I think when you're – my expectation is for a crisp execution on the very first day of practice and my expectation was too high...I guess my expectations we're going to go out there and almost be like in game week shape. I should have never thought that."
WVU Rich Rodriguez: “My expectation is to be crisp on the first day of practice, but my expectations were too high.”
— Mike J. Asti (@MikeAsti11) August 5, 2026
Rich Rodriguez approaching 2026 fall camp with high expectations and a "sense of urgency"
While it's not encouraging to hear things were below Rodriguez's standard on the first day, it's worth keeping in mind that the he holds his athletes to very high expectations, and that there is stil a full month before the season begins. So this isn't the end of the world.
But at the same time, with only a handful of practices before classes officially begin and plenty of work to be done, Rodriguez is approaching things with a "sense of urgency," and hopes his team will too.
"And that's why you have to the I guess more not just our players, our staff has to understand you got to have a sense of urgency," Rodriguez said.
"It ain't like okay you got three weeks or two a days and you'll get it sorted out whatever. I mean the the time frame is less...I don't know if everybody has a sense of urgency that I have. But they'll probably hear about it, you know, at the end of practice or coming up in a staff meeting."
With the season still 30 days away as of writing this, there's likely no real reason to worry yet. The first day of practice never goes quite as planned. But it will be interesting to track this storyline through the first couple weeks of camp to see how Rodriguez feels things are developing.
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