Rich Rodriguez calls the state of college football a 'cluster - I better not say the last word'

Veteran head coach Rich Rodriguez is making his long-awaited return to West Virginia this season. This comes 18 years after departing the program for the Michigan job.

Rodriguez saw immense success in Morgantown, as he led the Mountaineers to a 60-26 record over seven seasons with wins in three consecutive bowl games to end his tenure (2005 Sugar Bowl, 2006 Gator Bowl and 2007 Fiesta Bowl). He will coach his first game at WVU in 18 years on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET against Robert Morris.

Prior to the Mountaineers’ season opener on Saturday, however, Rodriguez joined the ‘Pat McAfee Show’ to discuss the current college football landscape. Rodriguez coached McAfee at West Virginia from 2005-07.

“How college football is, it’s a cluster — I better not say the last word,” Rodriguez joked. “But I think there’s efforts to make it better. I’ll give you my opinion… I still think there’s a separation that’s about to come whether it’s gonna be 50 or 60 power-four schools that have their own league and everyone else is separate because there’s just so many different dynamics in play now (money, financially, commitments to programs and what they can do going forward. So we’re running a professional league now. So as many professional rules that we can follow (which the NFL is obviously the most successful pro organization there is), we gotta follow that.”

“If we’re gonna follow an NFL model for fairness and equity, we need to get those rules established like right now.” Rodriguez continued. “People can complain about the NFL all they want but you guys know this: there’s fines and consequences for not following the rules and all that. In college, there’s still not. So, I think all that is gonna have one aspect. I can sit here and bitch about it, but right now I’m saying ‘what good does it do for me to bitch about it. What’s the rules right now and what do we have to do to win under these rules and what can we control?’

“What we can control is our guys playing really hard, playing with passion and being disciplined. So this first game, I said we can’t have pre-snap penalties and guys holding. When you hold, you’re lazy. That’s it. If you loaf, you’re a traitor and play for the other team. So I don’t want lazy people and don’t want traitors. That’s not being a jerk, that’s just being a team. A disciplined team,” Rodriguez concluded.

The first game of the year is usually strong for Rodriguez. During Rodriguez’s first tenure at West Virginia, the Mountaineers were 5-2 in season openers.