WVU football’s Rich Rodriguez welcomes former team Arizona for 1st time since leaving
Trending
MORGANTOWN -- West Virginia football's Rich Rodriguez has coached for about 30 years at multiple different levels. From Glenville State, to offensive coordinator at Clemson, to WVU, to Michigan, then down to Jacksonville State and back to Morgantown. And Rodriguez has had different experiences at each place.
Most of the time, when he's had a good experience, during his press conferences, he'll bring it up. Like the Sugar Bowl with Pat White, calling plays for Tommy Bowden at Tulane, and how he brings up taking Jacksonville State from FCS to FBS (Rodriguez very rarely brings up Michigan).
But Rodriguez talks about his time at Arizona quite a lot, even if he was fired. He talked about the area, past quarterbacks, and how the best game he's ever coached was the upset beatdown win over Oregon in 2013.
Rodriguez spent the second-longest time of his career in Tucson and had a lot of success there. In six seasons, Rodriguez went 43-35 and 3-2 in bowl games. Rodriguez was named Pac-12 Coach of the Year, winning the Pac-12 South.
There were the off-the-field experiences, too. Raquel, his daughter, was the captain of the cheerleading team, and Rhett, his son, was a quarterback there.
Now, for the first time since leading Arizona, Rodriguez will face the Wildcats on Saturday at noon.
"I enjoyed our time there," Rodriguez said. "We had some success. Went to a bowl game five out of six years, and had some really good players. Got some big ranked wins, and all that."
Arizona is now run by head coach Brent Brennan. Brennan is the third to lead the Wildcats since Rodriguez left in 2017. He took the job after Jedd Fisch went to Washington in 2023, and came over after six successful years at San Jose State.
Brennan had a rough first season, going 4-8, but he completely flipped the switch in Year 2, finishing 9-4 and had the Wildcats ranked No. 17 in the final College Football Playoff rankings. This season, Arizona is off to a hot start. The Wildcats are 4-1, and 1-1 in the Big 12. The only loss is to No. 8 BYU in Week 2 by 11 points.
After downing undefeated Cincinnati, Arizona received 19 votes in the week's AP Poll, making them unofficially No. 32. The Wildcats are knocking on the door of the top 25 as contenders in the Big 12.
"Coach Brennan and his staff, I think he’s done a great job," Rodriguez said. "They’ve got their program in the right spot, and they’ve got good football players. Probably maybe the best team we’ve played so far this year, so it’s going to be a great challenge."
Taking a look at Rodriguez's squad, it's not off to the best start. The Mountaineers started the season 3-0, with a ranked win over Virginia, but that win is aging poorly since the Cavaliers were dominated by Florida State recently. WVU has lost back-to-back games since that win, and both were in conference. The Mountaineers need a big bounce-back game, especially on the defensive side of the ball that's looked awful in both losses.
Rodriguez has some feelings towards his former school because of the experiences there, but none of his players share those same emotions. He's hoping the emotions of losing two games will help his team pull off the upset, while Rodriguez will share that urge to get back in the win column, but also the motivation to beat his former team.
"I think our guys are hungry to play well and prove themselves," Rodriguez said. "I think our fans are wanting to see true Mountaineer football and guys playing with great passion. We owe it to the fans to try to do that."