COLUMN: Hard to see how Rich Rodriguez, WVU can recover from this loss to Kansas
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MORGANTOWN - The official point of delusion hit Milan Puskar Stadium on Saturday.
Many might think the word should be insanity, but West Virginia's 37-7 loss to lowly Kansas and the Mountaineers' dismal season overall is not a result of simply doing the same thing over and over and somehow expecting a different result.
Lord knows, WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez and his $1.5 million dollar sidekick Zac Alley have tried different stuff.
Whether that's been new formations, simplifying things, new personnel or whatever, the box of ideas has been drained. There are literally no more stones to unturn.
If the WVU defense were allowed to play with 12 players - maybe the only option not thought of to this point - it would still stink.
"Defense hasn't played well all year, and we continued to play poorly,” Rodriguez said.
Yet, this is not another write-up about how bad the Mountaineers are on defense. We could go all day on how Kansas (4-6, 2-5 Big 12) racked up 339 yards to take a 30-7 halftime lead. You've heard it all before.
This is about delusion. If you somehow still hold out hope this WVU football program is moving in the right direction under the tutelage of Rodriguez, you are either severely under the weather or Rodriguez owes you money.
Otherwise, outside of a couple of nice moments - a comeback win against Pitt 428 days ago, and a road win against Houston last season - there has been absolutely no proof that this program is no better than a circus sideshow.
Yes, there may be some things that have caught your attention during Rodriguez's first two years. There may have even been a few moments that made you say, "Did you just see that?"
You would have the exact same reaction to a clown juggling bowling pins while riding around on a unicycle and being chased by a lion. The only difference between that and what Rodriguez has accomplished since his return to Morgantown is we're not exactly sure he can ride a unicycle.
Following the game, Rodriguez made his attempt to calm the masses. His words were promises that he simply may not be able to keep.
"We're better than we were a year ago," Rodriguez said. "We're going to be better in three weeks than we are today. We're going to be better in three months. We're going to be better next fall than we were this fall if we retain the players we want to retain and recruit the way we need to recruit and I fix some of the issues we've got to fix."
We've discussed in the past how Rodriguez's return to Morgantown - from a public relations standpoint - has been a disaster from Day 1. There's no reason to rehash those ideas, except to say that statement still holds true to this very day.
And it's way too late to fix that now.
The larger concern is Rodriguez's behind-the-scenes decision making and program management. He spent a ton of money to hire Alley as the defensive coordinator. In both of his seasons, WVU's defense has allowed more points than any other Big 12 school.
Yet, Rodriguez just keeps putting up with Alley's results week after week after week - OK, maybe that is insanity - expecting some type of magical turnaround.
What's the real reason Alley is still in Morgantown? The guess from here is there is no one else on the WVU defensive staff who is capable of making any type of positive impact. If that is the case, well, it was Rodriguez who hired those guys, too.
If that isn't a sign of off-the-field incompetence, what is?
Another sign of poor program management from Rodriguez came a few weeks ago. You may have been listening to his weekly radio show, when he strongly disputed the social-media theory that WVU spent the majority of its revenue sharing funds on offensive players.
"That's fiction,” Rodriguez said. “That's probably social media fiction, I would think. If you really want to find out what the untruth is, follow on social media most of the time. But no, I don't mind saying that the money spent on both sides of the ball is really close. It's almost identical."
If WVU (5-5, 2-5) spent the same amount of millions on this defense - make that THIS - defense, then it's the greatest mismanagement of funds since Bernie Madoff. If Rodriguez shelled out more than $20 for this defense, it's a damn shame.
There have been some positive hits in evaluating transfers - Michael Hawkins Jr., Cam Cook - but so many more misses. If you take the staff's current success rate in the transfer portal and move it forward to next season, there's no way WVU will be ready to compete in the Big 12.
If you disagree, we certainly appreciate your obscene amount of optimism. If you are WVU athletic director Wren Baker and you disagree, well, that's simply an opinion that's dangerously delusional.