Rodriguez sets high standards for WVU
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — If you are on social media these days — and who isn’t? — you probably have stumbled across a West Virginia University football post in which there is a picture of Rich Rodriguez wearing a headset on the sidelines, a coaching whistle dangling around his neck and WV pullover alongside a quote from the coach which says:
“Our expectation is to win and compete for the championship every year, including the first one.”
One might pass this off as using the desire to win a championship right out of the gate as just a form of salesmanship as the RichRod, Era 2, begins.
Surely those who were here for RichRod, Era 1, remember the talk of championships then and the 3-8 start his Mountaineer career, replacing the legendary Don Nehlen, got off to, so they may be questioning whether or not such a possibility exists in the current transitional era.
It is a time when not only the coach has changed, but the players have changed as well while the system has changed into a professional model that, if you will pardon the cliche, makes it a brand new ballgame.
He is an old-fashioned coach in a new fangled time and one has to wonder if those forces can merge into a winning situation.
Certainly, the expectations and pressures are different than the first time around. If memory serves correctly, one of my earliest columns on the hiring of Neal Brown six years ago was that he must be given time to rebuild, that three years would be fair.
This is no longer true, as that promotional ad points out. You give a coach a five-year deal and pay nearly $4 million a season in an era where instant success is not only possible but expected due to the transfer portal, revenue sharing and NIL payments to players and you change the entire landscape from a Putt Putt golf layout to Oakmont Country Club itself.
There are no mulligans and West Virginia and Rodriguez know that.
“There’s no question the goalposts have moved and you have to move with it,” Rodriguez said on a recent podcast. “Last year we had 60-some new players at Jax State. We started off the season losing a couple of games but I thought we would be better as we went along and we did, wound up winning the conference.
“This is the same way. We’re going to probably end up having 70 or 75 new players (at WVU). So, you are building the culture, you are building a system and it has to happen on speed dial. You’re speed dating in recruiting,” he said.
“You don’t have two or three years to build a relationship. You might have two or three days. That’s what’s so crazy about it, but if you want to win you have to adapt to what it is. You can complain about it all you want, but it is what it is.
“At the same time, you can’t sacrifice your culture. Maybe you have these expectations and you have a guy who is upset or whatever with something and he’s a starter and people are afraid he’s going to get in the portal.”
It is a balancing act between the coach and his team, between the coach and his fans and the coach and his administration.
Rodriguez’s approach in 2001 was far less pressure packed than it is now and he knows it.
“They didn’t bring me back for nostalgic reasons. They brought me back to win,” he said this spring. “Every decision I make now is made to help us win. I wouldn’t have come back if I didn’t think we could win a national championship.
“I had a great situation at Jacksonville State and I could have stayed there and finished my career, but I wanted to come back home and coach the school I care about and love and win it all here.”
Rodriguez may now have the security of the five-year deal and with a major league pay scale. He may have money to spend on staff and players and may have turned over his roster to the point that building a culture won’t be easy or quick, but he believes in his approach and that it will work once again.
“When Coach Nehlen was here and winning; when I had success here; when anybody had success here you got some really good players and coached them hard. That’s what happened when I played here for Don Nehlen. He had really good players — I wouldn’t say I was a great player, but I was OK. He had good players and we got coached hard,” he has said.
“I had good players and they played really hard. That formula has not changed and that’s the key. We’re going to find really good players who want to play at West Virginia and they are going to play really hard. It’s really simple. You get really good players, coach them hard and as they get better you are going to win. It was the same for Don Nehlen and is the same for Rich Rodriguez.”
The past is the past and it’s got to be laid to rest while moving forward, he believes.
“The time for apologies is kind of over now,” he told Josh Pate on another podcast. “Things are now positive. There’s a handful of people still upset over how I left and they come up with all kinds of conspiracy theories that are absolutely ridiculous, but overwhelmingly the majority of the people I’ve seen and spoken with have been great.
“I don’t think it’s me individually or that era we had, the idea of bringing Pat White back, they want to get back to us playing on national TV and winning championships and having a chance to win it all. That’s my goal, too,” he continued.
“I always tell people my happiness is based on winning. If we’re winning, I’m happy. If not, I’m miserable … and probably everyone around me is, too.”
That is Rodriguez’s roadmap to the future.
“Is that the program you have to have to have success? No, but that’s my formula. It’s been that way since I started playing Little League baseball. If we won, I had a good day and if we lost I had a miserable day,” he said.
A lot has changed since then except Rodriguez’s desire to win.