When a defense gives up 1,668 yards and 131 points in three conference games, it's very easy for fans to start voicing their frustrations, sure, but to also think that it's never going to get better until the team reaches the offseason.
No one is more ticked off about how the defense has played than WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez, yet he still has faith in his players and staff to get things fixed to some degree so that they can win some more ball games in 2026.
"Most of them, yeah," Rodriguez responded when he was asked if the problems can be fixed during the season. "There's no question. When you give up two halfback passes in the Iowa State game and a flea-flicker pass in this game, those are just embarrassing. That should never happen. We just got to get coached better and obviously perform a lot better to give us a chance to win games. I'm encouraged because I know we can play a whole lot better."
As irritated as he may be, he doesn't sound like a coach who has given up all hope on that unit and is acting like it is a lost cause. He believes the talent is there and trusts that his staff will do a better job of putting their guys in a position to succeed.
Many of the problems are centered around misfitting things in the run game, having bad eye discipline, and simply just not lining up where they need to be.
"We've looked at everything," Rodriguez said. "The whole staff watched the film for four and a half hours Sunday morning, watched it with the whole defense Sunday afternoon, and trying to get to the bottom of exactly why, because it's been a different issue or issues every week. I know what the answers are, and the coaches know what the answers are, and we have good enough players to play better. We just, as a staff, got to find ways to get our guys to play better, and that includes everything: How we're practicing, who's playing where, fundamentally, schematically, everything. I think there is the ability for us to be pretty good on defense with the guys that we have and the coaches that we have, but it's not shown up."
There will definitely be some personnel changes moving forward.
Some guys who have already been moved around may get moved a second time to another position — I'm specifically talking about the back end here — and you are likely to see more playing time from some guys who have seen limited action thus far.
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