Cats Stats: Arizona’s Week 6 foe, West Virginia, is a classic RichRod production

He had three jobs between his time at the UA and his second stint at West Virginia, coaching in the SEC, the Sun Belt and Conference USA.

In many ways, he hasn’t changed a lick.

Rodriguez might have mellowed a bit — a tiny bit — but he’s still intense, sarcastic and as capable as any coach in America of drawing up plays and putting up 40 points.

His team’s defenses are just as capable of allowing 40 points — another example of how things haven’t changed all that much.

Are RichRod’s current Mountaineers basically a carbon copy of his former Wildcats? Is that what fans can expect to see when they tune in at 9 a.m. Saturday to watch Arizona face West Virginia in Morgantown?

That’s what we set out to discover in this week’s “Cats Stats.” We explored two areas in particular — running the ball and stopping opposing offenses. Here’s what we found:

Every week is rush week

We know that Rodriguez loves to run the rock. We know that he likes to have an athletic quarterback who can spearhead the ground attack, or at least participate in it.

But even for RichRod, this year’s Mountaineers are extreme.

West Virginia is averaging 53.8 rushing attempts per game. (For the purpose of this exercise, we’re not shifting sacks to the pass column.) That’s second in the nation behind Air Force. It’s more than Army and Navy are averaging.

Do you know how committed to the bit you have to be to have more rushing attempts than two of the three service academies, who all run some version of the triple option?

Meantime, West Virginia averages just 17.6 passing attempts per game. Only five teams average fewer — and three of them are Air Force, Army and Navy.

On a percentage basis, the Mountaineers pass the ball 75.4% of the time while running it 24.6% of the time. The gap was never that wide at Arizona.

The biggest separation occurred in 2017, Rodriguez’s last season, when Khalil Tate took over at quarterback and became a dual-threat sensation. The split that year, which began with another excellent runner, Brandon Dawkins, at quarterback: 67.4% run plays, 32.6% pass plays.

Over Rodriguez’s six seasons in Tucson, the Wildcats ran the ball 57.3% of the time while passing it 42.7%. It was closer to a 50/50 split in 2012, ‘14 and ‘15. Arizona’s main quarterbacks those seasons were Matt Scott (2012) and Anu Solomon (2014-15). The Wildcats went to bowl games each season and won the Pac-12 South in 2014.

“He's been successful everywhere he's been with whoever he's had,” said UA defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales, who will match wits with Rodriguez on Saturday. “I think that's the true testament of a really good football coach — that he can adapt to whatever his players are.”

Solomon was more of a pocket passer than a true dual threat. Just about every other RichRod quarterback at Arizona put up prolific rushing totals — while Rodriguez gave plenty of touches to star running backs such as Ka’Deem Carey, Nick Wilson and J.J. Taylor.

B.J. Denker rushed for 949 yards and 13 touchdowns in 2013. Jerrard Randall had 702 yards and five TDs in 2015 as a change-of-pace reserve. Dawkins had 944 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2016. And Tate had 1,411 yards and 12 TDs in ’17 (while averaging 9.2 yards per rush).

Rodriguez found his latest running quarterback, Michael Hawkins Jr., in the transfer portal. The former Oklahoma Sooner has 574 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns through five games. He’s on pace for 1,378 yards and 26 TDs over a 12-game regular season.

Cam Cook is playing the Ka’Deem Carey role. The transfer from Jacksonville State ranks first in the nation in rushing attempts (119), second in yards (652) and third in yards per game (130.4).

The flip side

The Mountaineers lead the Big 12 in rushing (294 yards per game) and rank fourth in scoring (37.4 points per game). They’re last or next-to-last in total defense (456.6), rushing defense (168.4), passing defense (288.2) and scoring defense (28.8).

“I think we’re the worst defense in college football,” West Virginia defensive coordinator Zac Alley told reporters.

That’s not technically true — but it’s not far off. The Mountaineers rank 110th out of 138 FBS teams in scoring defense, 132nd in total defense and 125th in yards allowed per play (6.6). They surrendered an average of 43 points and 593 yards the past two weeks in losses to Oklahoma State and Iowa State.

Sound familiar?

Arizona seldom had stellar defenses during the RichRod era, despite Scooby Wright having a season for the ages in 2014 and every UA draft pick between 2016 and ’18 being a defensive player.

It’s not that Rodriguez doesn’t care about defense. He just happens to be an offensive coach whose main path to victory has been to play fast and try to outscore the other team.

Only one UA defensive unit during RichRod’s tenure, the 2013 version, ranked in the top 40 in scoring defense (39). Every other one ranked 80th or worse. The average rank was 93.

That 2013 defense also had the best national rankings in total defense (63) and yards allowed per play (39). None of the other five defenses ranked higher than 106th in total defense (the overall average was 107), and none was better than 75th in yards allowed per play (average: 81).

Given the typical productivity of Rodriguez’s offense at West Virginia — and the corresponding leakiness of the Mountaineers’ defense — the following should come as no surprise:

UA-WVU has the highest over/under among all games this week at 61.5 points.