COLUMN: It’s past time for Rich Rodriguez to hit the panic button at WVU
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MORGANTOWN - "I’m not going to panic five games into the second year."
Those were the words spoken by WVU football coach Rich Rodriguez on Tuesday.
Four days later, um Rich, it's time to panic.
That was the feeling coming out of West Virginia's 52-31 loss against Arizona inside Milan Puskar Stadium, a loss that sent the Mountaineers to 0-3 in Big 12 play this season with games still remaining against Cincinnati, TCU, Texas Tech, Kansas, Houston and Utah.
If Rodriguez isn't panicking now, it must mean he's on some pretty good medication.
If he's not willing to question every single facet of this program - including whether or not he's the right man to lead the Mountaineers - then Rodriguez must be on something other than medication.
It is here we take a break from the weekly who-is-to-blame-for-WVU's-woes section of our E-edition to send out a hearty thank you.
This thank you goes out to many of the so-called big money donors for WVU - you know damn well who you are - the ones who prodded, schemed, challenged, orchestrated and basically put West Virginia athletic director Wren Baker into a tough spot back in 2024 and forced his hand to hire Rodriguez.
Thank you Mr. Rich Guys for overstretching your bounds when you had absolutely no business to do so and handing us nothing but a gas can to put out a fire.
Please, in the future Mr. Rich Donor, whenever you feel compelled to use your checkbook to fix something at WVU - or threaten not to use it unless your buddy gets hired - we instead urge you to send that money to a local homeless or animal shelter.
Make a donation to The United Way or maybe even a local hospital, because you've already proven your ideas of how WVU's athletic department should be run are totally off base.
All of your threats and money being tossed around have accomplished nothing more than the Mountaineers winning seven of the first 18 games since Rodriguez's return. He's now 2-10 against Big 12 competition.
The program was a mess when Rodriguez took over. After Saturday's loss against Arizona, in which the Wildcats had four drives in which they scored touchdowns on plays of 30 yards or longer, it officially became a dumpster fire.
So, again, a sincere thank you to those donors who just "knew" Rodriguez was the guy to make this program right again. All you did was pull a fantastic number over on the WVU athletic department and probably set the football program back another three or four years.
OK, back to what troubles this WVU football program.
"I told the team, I think you're playing hard, but there's some stuff that we, as coaches, have got to figure out in a hurry and fix in a hurry," Rodriguez said. "We didn't get it fixed today, defensively especially."
The WVU defense and its $1.5 million dollar man in coordinator Zac Alley are now, well, there's too many words that could be used to finish that sentence.
Arizona came into the game without four of its top pass catchers - three wide receivers and the starting tight end - and still averaged 20.1 yards per completion. Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita threw just seven incomplete passes all day and went for 341 yards and three touchdowns.
Imagine, for a moment, if the Wildcats weren't forced to play with their junior varsity guys at receiver.
If that were the case, it would have been so much worse. It would have been so bad, the members of the Heisman Trophy Trust likely would have stopped the game in the third quarter and simply handed Fifita the Heisman right then and there.
"It's as frustrated as I've ever been defensively," Rodriguez said.
Frustrating no longer applies to this situation. If Rodriguez and the WVU athletic department aren't ready to hit the panic button by now, then they must be watching something else on Saturday afternoons.