WVU’s Million Dollar Rich Rod Gamble in Jeopardy as Insider Makes Tough Revelation on Rehiring Stance

Did you know WVU was once one of the best teams out there? 32-5 run between 2005 and 2007. Plus, 4 Big East championships under their belt. That ain’t all. The team went for a high 60-26 record. But who made all of this possible? Rich Rodriguez. Also known as Rich Rod. You see, Rod was an amazing coach. With what he did at West Virginia, he managed to snag three 10 10-win seasons. That entire era of West Virginia football landed them in the 2nd spot in the AP polls in 2007. No doubt, all of this makes Rich Rod look like an amazing coach. Under him, the offense was massive, and the defense did well enough.

So why is there so much hate now? “I think hiring Rich Rodriguez would be a bad idea… Going back to Rich Rodriguez because it worked 20 years ago is a mistake,” 365 Sports pointed out in their latest video while talking about Mountaineers hiring Rich Rod once again after their disaster 6-6 2024 season. 17 long years and the prodigal son returns, people should rejoice, right? But this entire undertaking has come with its bag of rot. You see, fans of WVU don’t hate Rich Rod for choosing Michigan over the Mountaineers. They hate this man because he left West Virginia when it was on the cusp of becoming one of the leading programs in the country.

The AP ranking we pointed out before? Yeah, that was right before their game against a 7-loss Panthers team. What happened in that showdown? Well, the 7 seasons that Rod had spent building something over at WVU came crumbling down.

The second-ranked Mountaineers lost to the Panthers, which led to their snub from the BCS National Championship title. Rod’s classic offensive approach just didn’t work against the Panthers’ defense. It was a close game, mind you. 13-9 on the board, but the multiple fumbles and missed FGs from West Virginia took them off of the winning run.

Now Rod had a dream, and that dream was over, so you cannot put all the blame on him for leaving abruptly. Although, bad luck followed the guy. His tenure at Michigan was a disaster, and he could never really get that run-and-gun offense working again. Coming back to the present, though, is bringing back the prodigal son a good idea for the future of Mountaineers’ football? WVU already wasted $19 million on Neal Brown for a 37-35 record; it cannot get worse than that, right?

A flop or a hit? A new era of West Virginia football under Rich Rod

College football right now is very different from what it was 17 years ago. A very important change is the NIL era and most players being free agent. In layman’s terms, if Rod wants to transform Mountaineers with new boys on the roster, then he has to hit the portal.

Now, that is going to cost him. This is the same dilemma people are facing with Bill Belichick‘s hiring at UNC. The Tar Heels are just not financially well-equipped to create a winning roster like, say, OSU football. Does WVU have the same backing? This is going to be a bit complicated for Rod.

But then, he is coming into this after the Gamecocks’ Conference USA title win. He helped Jacksonville State climb out of the FCS to the FBS level, so he knows what he is doing. And those seven seasons at Morgantown are no joke.

If he can make his no-huddle run-oriented offense work in this new era of college football, then we could end up watching West Virginia climb the charts the same way they did in 2007. But then again, all of this is wishful thinking because what worked 20 years ago could end up not working now.