Following a 37-14 defeat against the Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday evening, West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez did not mince words when addressing the performance of his 5-5 team.
The Mountaineers dropped to 5-5 overall and 2-5 in conference play after the lopsided loss, prompting an immediate apology from the veteran coach to the program’s fan base. West Virginia Mountaineers On SI reported that Rodriguez admitted he did not see the dismal performance coming.
“First off, I apologize to our fan base, to every West Virginia fan out there. I mean, I didn’t see this coming. It was just embarrassing,” Rodriguez told West Virginia Mountaineers On SI.
The offensive unit struggled mightily throughout the contest, falling well short of its season averages against a Kansas defense that implemented an unexpected scheme. Rodriguez pointed directly to failures in preparation and execution across the board, explicitly stating that the coaching staff let the players down on Saturday night.
“I told the team it was as poorly coached as can be. I mean, on offense, poorly coached, defense poorly coached,” Rodriguez said to West Virginia Mountaineers On SI.
The offensive line faced immense pressure from the opening whistle, struggling to handle both the run game and pass protection against the Jayhawks’ front. Rodriguez said that the absence of Amare “Bubba” Grayson due to injury removed a vital calming presence from the offensive front, though he emphasized that one missing player could not entirely excuse the cascading breakdowns.
“We didn’t block at all up front, and I knew their front was good, but it was bad from the start in everything; Pass protection, run game was awful,” Rodriguez said, according to West Virginia Mountaineers On SI.
Defensively, the Mountaineers have struggled to find consistent footing all season, a trend that continued against Kansas. Rodriguez acknowledged that while the offense has generally produced solid numbers across the year, the defensive unit has failed to put together a complete performance through nine games.
“Today was an outlier for our offense. Our offense had played pretty well all year. Defense hadn’t played well all year and continued to play poorly,” Rodriguez told West Virginia Mountaineers On SI. “We haven’t played well defensively in any game. We’ve played tighter a little bit in a couple games, TCU or whatever, but we haven’t played well all year.”
Despite the overwhelming frustrations from the blowout defeat, Rodriguez expressed belief in the resilience of his roster as the team prepares to address glaring mistakes on the practice field before their next matchup.
“I thought we had a decent week but give them credit and we got a lot of work to do, but I think our players are resilient. I know we’re not going to let this game define us or define our season, but we’ve got obviously a lot of things to fix in a hurry,” Rodriguez said to West Virginia Mountaineers On SI.
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