Rich Rodriguez comes full circle at West Virginia
Rich Rodriguez has been a head coach at seven schools over his career, and it typically takes some time to get adjusted not just to the roster but to the town and community.
That process typically takes anywhere from six to nine months in order to learn the lay of the land.
“West Virginia took six to nine minutes,” he said.
That isn’t surprising considering Rodriguez already had been the head coach at West Virginia from 2001-07 and also attended school and played football for the Mountaineers.
“Coming back home I know where all the bodies are buried and the traps are laid. Kind of understand the environment so to speak,” Rodriguez said.
That made the transition back to Morgantown easier for Rodriguez, but also times have changed with West Virginia now in a new conference in the Big 12 and some of the facility upgrades. One of the first things that Rodriguez noticed was the over $50 million that the program invested in football.
“A lot of that stuff you wanted to have as a program we were able to have coming back the second time. The challenges are everything is different now but at the same time it’s not,” he said.
And while the Big 12 is a different league, Rodriguez does have some familiarity with many of the teams having played in the Pac-12 when he was at Arizona.
“So there’s some familiarity with that,” he said.
Rodriguez himself also has evolved as a coach and while he still utilizes some of the same things he did offensively 20-years ago, they’ve also found ways to make that better and borrowed from others. But he still believes that the trick is to get players to play really, really hard.
“I probably have become simpler as opposed to more exotic from a scheme standpoint but the playing hard and physical aspect is never going to change,” he said.
One of the things that has helped Rodriguez in his overall adjustment is the fact that he completely understands the fan base and how those in the state relate to the athletic programs.
“In West Virginia football is important, athletics are important, WVU is important because we’re a smaller state and there is no other power four team. There are no pro organizations so it’s a big deal to a lot of people,” Rodriguez said.
Given his ties to the state, Rodriguez feels that responsibility, given how he understands the state and he is excited for the opportunity to come home and lead the West Virginia football program again. It’s a message that he plans on stressing to the players and coaches as well.
“It doesn’t happen very often that you get a chance to come full circle and come back. There’s so many things that have to take place for that to happen,” he said.
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