Editor’s note: Sixth in a series previewing each team in the Big 12 in 2025
There was no Big 12 football preseason media poll this summer, but if there were, the West Virginia Mountaineers probably would have been picked to finish near the bottom of the 16-team league’s standings.
Simply put, it is time for a rebuild in Morgantown, and school officials brought in a familiar face to oversee that project: Rich Rodriguez.
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Having been hired away from Jacksonville State, where he established one of the best offensive attacks in all of college football, Rodriguez inherits a program that wasn’t bad in 2024 but left administrators wanting more.
The Mountaineers tied for eighth in the Big 12 last year with a 5-4 league mark, but were blown out 52-15 by Texas Tech late in the year, which led to Neal Brown’s firing after six seasons.
Brown was 37-35 during his tenure at West Virginia.
Enter “Rich Rod,” who has also been a head coach at Salem University, Glenville State College, Arizona and Michigan, in addition to being the Mountaineers’ head coach from 2001 to 2007.
“This is really surreal,” Rodriguez said at his introductory news conference. “I never should have left.”
ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that Rodriguez signed a five-year contract with an average base salary of $3.75 million per year over the course of the deal. The contract is loaded with incentives after Rodriguez went 60-26 in his first stint in Morgantown.
Rodriguez hasn’t wasted time since getting the job last December, bringing in dozens and dozens of transfers in what has been described as a total rebuild.
As for returning home, as he called it, he said the familiarity has enabled him to hit the…
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Publish date : 2025-07-21 00:34:00
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