How Did Rich Rod Do in His First Year Back as a Head Coach?
There's a portion of the West Virginia fan base that wants Rich Rodriguez to return to Morgantown to lead the Mountaineers.
Why?
I'm not really sure, to be honest. Since leaving WVU in 2007, Rodriguez hasn't seen much success. He was fired after just three years on the job at Michigan with a 15-22 record and was let go after six seasons at Arizona with a 43-35 record to go along with a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and a hostile workplace environment.
Aside from his three-year run with Pat White where they managed to win 32 of 37 games, Rodriguez is 86-78 as a Division-I head coach. During that stretch, Rich Rod ran an offense that no one knew how to defend. The spread, at the time, was new and he had the perfect guys to run it. Over the last decade or so, the rest of college football adapted and followed suit running some version of the spread. This is a big reason why he hasn't had the same results since being in Morgantown. When everyone else is running a similar-style offense with better/more talented athletes, it becomes increasingly hard to win games.
Rodriguez took a year off from coaching in 2018 before accepting the offensive coordinator position at Ole Miss in 2019. He spent just one year in Oxford and was not retained by Lane Kiffin when he was hired to be the Rebels' next head coach. Once again, Rich Rod took a year off before linking up with Terry Bowden at Louisiana-Monroe.
Now, Rodriguez is back in the big chair as the head coach at Jacksonville State, an FCS program (for now). In his first year on the job, Rodriguez led the Gamecocks to a 9-2 record, winning the A-SUN Conference championship. Things will get a little more challenging in 2023, however, as Jacksonville State makes the leap to FBS joining Conference USA. Liberty, New Mexico State, and Sam Houston will also be joining the league this summer.
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