Besides "Wins", What does RR success depend on?
I think it is his Defensive Coordinater. I am really, really hoping he hires a good one.
I think it is his Defensive Coordinater. I am really, really hoping he hires a good one.
RR Success Depends On......What?
- Thread starter WVU_98
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Every team needs a good QB to start with. A DC would no doubt be a huge plus but you got to have that QB.
Yes, he needs good assistant coaches and I have faith he will assemble the staff he wants. But he needs players. They play the game. And it is not just 22 but rather to be a great team year in and out, you need depth. That is something WVU hasn't had since RR and Bill Stewart regimes.
The DC hire is going to be huge but before anything else we need to see those big donors step up with NIL money. Without it, no one is going to have a lot of success.
The new DC won’t be much good with out good talent in the defensive backfield and a good DB coach. To me, QB consistency and coverage of opponents WRs are our biggest needs. Finally, we need a new PK.
I was agree with this. These days $$$$ is the biggest issue. May not like it but it is. Having Mcafee on our side will help tremendously!!
Rich has friends wth very deep pockets. If they'll step up he should have a much better chance of landing some quality talent.
There are many factors that will affect his liklihood of success. But seeing as he is an offensive minded coach and the offensive prowess of the team still flows through the offensive line, I think O-line coach will be his biggest ally in the struggle ahead. 5 Zach Fraziers/Wyatt Milums are not likely to fall into his lap like they would for Saban, so he is going to need a guy who can form a zone blocking scheme with guys that are not quite NFL talent. A good strength and conditioning coach will be helpful in this regard as well.
I think RR's initial success has already happened -- WVU is now part of the national conversation and that's been missing for a while now. Hopefully, he'll continue to build upon that and bring people back to the stadium.... So, to answer your question, success in 2025 will be equated to the number of butts in the seats.
2005-07 saw a lot of success without a lot of NFL caliber talent. Pat White went 2nd round, but only played a few series as a pro and was cut after I think 2 years. Slaton was a 3rd rounder but after his big rookie year he was pushed out by Arian Foster and then became a journeyman. Schmitt played awhile but a FB is not something most NFL teams and even college teams employ. McAfee as a punter was the only one who had a long tenure in the NFL. So with that said it shouldn’t take a massive NIL budget to fill the roster with who RR needs. The QB and RBs will be the priorities, everything else should be plug and play with kids who can be coached up.
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Big donors with NIL money is a great answer. While I don't like the RR hire, I do think he brings in the money with the donors. I think he was promised lots mroe money. I hope it works out.
This needs to work. It’s our best chance in my opinion. If this fails I don’t know where we turn.
If this fails, and it very well might, we’ll just keep chugging along as a 5-8 win program. I think any chance at a NC in any of our lifetimes is gone and the focus and resources should go to hoops to chase that dream.
I don’t think it fails but I agree if it does we may be in trouble.
I mean he hasn’t won at a level above the Big East since 2014. His best stint which was here didn’t happen in the free transfer and NIL era, so being able to replicate a class of guys who come in together and work their asses off and build chemistry over 4 years is pretty much off the table.
He will need to reinvent himself at the power conference level as well as blaze a new path of how to win here in the new frontier.
Anyone winning an NC in football that is not a big-name Big X or SEC school......will be a fluke.
We’ve seen more parity this year than any other since 2007. SMU went 8-0 in regular season ACC play, Indiana went 8-1 in the B1G, Arizona State won the Big XII, Army won the American, the best SEC teams all have 2 losses, Alabama didn’t make a 12 team playoff.
Say what you want about the new era we’re in, but it has unquestionably weakened the position of the blue bloods. Having a second team at a school like UGA that could beat a program like WVU by 20 is no longer common, instead those kids seek out programs like WVU so they can play. The talent pool available for us to pull from is more than it was in 2005 when RR ascended the program. There has never been more of an opportunity for unconventional programs to find unconventional ways to gain national relevance. RR just has to figure out what our path looks like, he has an offense that will naturally bring in the under recruited types, but when we inevitably have a QB who is rushing for 1000 yards while throwing for 2000 someone is going to want him, can we stave off that onslaught or are we going to restart every year? That’s on the donors to step up.
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Making the playoffs is one thing, but winning the title is another. You can root for the underdog SMU all you want, but I'll put my money on UGA.....and deep down inside I think we all know who is going to win that tilt. For a WVU, the goal should be to win a playoff game....and take that as a successful year. In the NIL era, seeing a Boise State upset an Oregon......will be a nice story...but it won't be the norm.
Parity will get more and more prevalent in my opinion. Teams like Alabama, Ohio state and Georgia won’t be able to pay 20 5 star athletes so they will start spreading out to the lower tier teams.
If it’s just about money, SMU will go toe to toe with UGA’s alumni base any day of the week, idk if I would put the money on them this year, but eventually I might. We’ll see how much blank checks will get you, it nearly won a forgotten program a power conference in year 1.
As for us, no I don’t think a boat race with money is what will win us a national title, but with the talent spreading thinner, the circumstances that allowed a well oiled machine that can play above the sum of its parts in our 2007 team to be a home win against a bad team away from a NC appearance are kind of back. Beating UGA will no longer take some generational effort that would be on par with the miracle on ice.
Extending on my note above, the reason why WVU along with others were able to get so close to the national title in the 2005-07 era is that the selling point with recruits in the 70s 80s 90s was a lot about who was on TV. The early 2000s was the rise of “everyone is on TV” and unusual programs could walk into living rooms and say “Rutgers will have 11 of its 12 games on TV and 2 will be the only game on TV in special Thursday night slots”. Suddenly kids knowing they would still get exposure at lesser programs pursued playing time and location.
This only lasted so long as every grunt in G5 and now FCS has its game on somewhere and the selling point became who is going to win championships and send you to the NFL, and the answer to that question was basically 2-4 programs in a given year and with the transfer rules, talented kids would end up buried on depth charts at Bama and UGA and Clemson but not wanting to lose a year “waited their turn” and for some it would never come.
So with free transfers, plus middling programs willing to pay a kid more to start than UGA and Bama are willing to pay a kid to sit, along with the playoff being more inclusive, the talent concentration is loosening again back to that mid 2000s era. We will see an oddball team win a title soon if not this year.
This only lasted so long as every grunt in G5 and now FCS has its game on somewhere and the selling point became who is going to win championships and send you to the NFL, and the answer to that question was basically 2-4 programs in a given year and with the transfer rules, talented kids would end up buried on depth charts at Bama and UGA and Clemson but not wanting to lose a year “waited their turn” and for some it would never come.
So with free transfers, plus middling programs willing to pay a kid more to start than UGA and Bama are willing to pay a kid to sit, along with the playoff being more inclusive, the talent concentration is loosening again back to that mid 2000s era. We will see an oddball team win a title soon if not this year.
Scouting will be key. Paying JT Daniels $1m doesn’t mean you have a $1m QB, it means you paid JT Daniels $1m.
SMU has deep pockets, but are their pockets as deep as Tejas or Tejas ATM? College sports is now 40% NIL, 30% playing time, and the remainder is coaching/recruiting It's no different than the pros
I think that breakdown is accurate. Whether or not they can literally outspend those schools is not the point though, the point is they can play in the sandbox when previously they were an afterthought, which means the concentration of talent loosens up which means no more unbeatable super teams.
No more “hmm we’re losing at halftime of the national title game and for the first time all year, so I’m gonna throw a curve ball and take out Jalen Hurts for Tua Taigovailoa”. Sorry but the Pat White teams were not staying on the field with any of those champion or even runner up teams of the 2010s and early 2020s from Bama, LSU, Clemson who had 1st round picks in every trench and skill position and 1st round picks for the following year behind them.
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DH could have gotten us to the playoffs, at one time RR could have gotten us there, but the question is: does he still have it in him? It's been a while since he was the darling of the media world.....let's see if there's anything left in his bag of tricks.... I hope he does...
If he recreates what he had going here we can absolutely get to the playoffs and absolutely have a case to win it all. Easier said than done, it’s been a long time, but the 05-07 teams could have won the present Big XII. The Big XII champ gets a bye, and a winnable first playoff game, those teams did shock some pretty great teams during that era so winning two in a row against similar caliber of teams is doable. Not likely, but doable.
It has, but now you have to go through a gauntlet to lift the trophy. I don't see anyone outside of the Blue bloods or new row teams (Oregon, etc) making any waves under the new system.
BCS era was the easiest, just win games, get some luck, and win one game.
CFB playoff made it tougher as you had to win back to back.
Now it's absolutely brutal.
Indiana is a nice story, but they aren't going to win @ND and then follow up beating the Dawgs. It's just too difficult nowadays.
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