Rich Rodriguez breaks down how he has evolved as a coach since first West Virginia stint

Back at Big 12 Media Days for the first time in years, coach Rich Rodriguez knew the questions were coming. His reunion with West Virginia made that an inevitability.

Everyone wants to know if Rich Rod can recreate the magic from his first stint in Morgantown. That was one of the best periods in school history.

“I told some folks earlier today, obviously some of our success we had back in the 2000s was the reason they were interested in us coming back,” Rodriguez said. “But I think moreso is because we won at Jax State the last couple years. If we didn’t win at Jax State the last couple years I wouldn’t have this opportunity.

“So I know there’s some nostalgia going on there. We had some great times and we had a great run. Can we bring some of that excitement back? We can, for sure.”

One of the reasons Rich Rodriguez is so confident in his ability to recreate the magic is that he’s got more tricks in his bag now. He’s learned a lot as a coach over the last decade and a half.

And despite all the changes in college football, at the end of the day it still comes down to the Xs and the Os. The Jesses and the Joes.

“It’s different now in college, it’s so transactional,” Rodriguez said. “But I’ve got to be a better coach. I’m a better coach now than I was a week ago, let alone 17 years ago. But we’ve got to do better as coaches, but we’ve also got to get our players — to me, I don’t want to call it the old school way, but buy into the environment we had back then, when everything was about us and the team as opposed to individualism. Entitlement and all that stuff, there’s none of that in our program. We’re not going to have entitlement. We’re going to work hard, we’re going to earn success and then we’ll follow that with some wins.”

By the sound of things, Rich Rodriguez is eyeing program culture as the biggest way to enact change. The Mountaineers haven’t had that unified front in quite some time.

The new head coach is making sure his players know there are things that will be tolerated and things that won’t. Knowing the difference is key.

“Some of the stuff is non-negotiable, like playing hard and not being soft,” Rodriguez said. “But also our tempo is always a part of the deal. And not going fast all the time, but controlling the tempo. Having a team that’s in great condition on all three phases, that’s part of it as well.”

Can Rich Rodriguez reproduce the schematic advantage his teams had in the mid-2000s, when Pat White and Steve Slaton were running wild on opponents with the zone read? Listen to Rodriguez and that sounds like a foregone conclusion.

“I think scheme-wise, I’m a kind of a football savant,” he said. “If I look on Twitter or see something on the Internet that looks like something that could be implemented and it’s a great idea and we can coach it, hey, why not try it?

“But at the same time we always wind up going back into our core and our base, which is we’re going to play with 11, including the quarterback will run a little bit, we’re going to play with tempo and we’re going to play really, really hard all the time.”

Will that be enough for West Virginia to return to competing for conference championships. Rich Rodriguez certainly intends to find out.