A Rich Rodriguez and West Virginia reunion appears to be imminent.
According to multiple reports, the 61-year-old West Virginia native is expected to become the Mountaineers’ next head football coach. West Virginia fired Neal Brown earlier this month after he went 37-35 over six seasons and has zeroed in on Rodriguez, who has spent the past two seasons as Jacksonville State’s head coach, as his successor.
The school will be hoping Rodriguez can return his alma mater back to national prominence. He led the Mountaineers to their best three-year stretch in program history from 2005-07 – a 33-5 record – before accepting Michigan’s head coaching job ahead of the 2008 season.
Rodriguez’s success didn’t translate in Ann Arbor, where he went 15-22 over three seasons before getting fired. The Wolverines’ win total improved every season under Rodriguez, from 3-9 in 2008 to 7-6 in 2010, but Michigan decided to move on. It had the longest active bowl streak in the country before Rodriguez’s first season.
He has since resurrected his coaching career and guided the Gamecocks to consecutive 9-4 seasons and a Conference USA title in 2024.
Before Jacksonville State, Rodriguez was last a head coach at Arizona, where he finished 43-35 from 2012-17. He was fired after the school conducted an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against him.
Meanwhile, West Virginia is coming off a 6-6 season and has reached the double-digit win mark only twice since Rodriguez was last in Morgantown.
During his first head coaching stint with the Mountaineers, the team went 60-26, earning at least a share of the conference title in four of his seven seasons. He was a defensive back for West Virginia from 1981-84 and also spent one year as its linebackers coach in 1989.
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