Rich Rodriguez Discusses the Large Number of WVU Players Entering Transfer Portal

West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez speaks on all of the movement into the portal.

Schuyler Callihan | Dec 21, 2024

West Virginia University running back CJ Donaldson. / Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

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West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez knows that players entering the transfer portal is just a part of the world we live in nowadays in college athletics. No matter what you do or what you can offer, sometimes student-athletes have their mind made up.

But not all players who have entered the transfer portal are officially goners. Some are entering to weigh their options and to potentially see what their value is. Rodriguez talked about his plan with the transfer portal and was asked about the large number of players who have entered during an interview with Hoppy Kercheval on Talkline Friday morning.

“Not surprising. I mean, college football has changed so much. A lot of times, guys go in the portal because they want to see what their value is. Some guys want to go because they want an opportunity to play more. And some guys go, and they don’t know what the hell they want to do. I think sometime over the next year or two, there’ll be some more sanity put into college athletics.

"But I’ve tried to meet with all of them and talk to them about what our program is going to be about and what we can do for them. I’m not going to beg them. I’m going to tell them this is what we’re going to do; we’re going to be in a great position to help them not just career-wise, football-wise, academically, but financially. But if they’re going to go chase the money and some school is going to pay them big, big money, more money than we would pay, and they decide to do that, that’s fine. I’ll go get another one. I don’t panic about it.

"There’s a lot of good players out there. I don’t want to lose any of our good players, but it’s inevitable, it happens. If they do that, then I’ll go find one myself in the portal. Last year at Jax State, I know it’s Group of Five, but we had 60 new players. We lost a lot of guys that got bigger offers at Power Five, but we just got in the portal and, got some good players and ended up having a pretty good year.

"I’m not going to panic about it. I’m just disappointed because there’s some really good kids that probably get bad advice or go in the portal, and it ain’t what they think they’re going to be. But we’ll replace them. I’m not worried about it.”

QB Ryder Burton, RB Jaylen Anderson, WR Hudson Clement, WR Ric’Darious Farmer, TE Will Dixon, OL Sullivan Weidman, OL Johnny Williams IV, OL Tomas Rimac, LB Josiah Trotter, LB Trey Lathan, CB TJ Crandall, CB Ayden Garnes, S Raleigh Collins III, S Josiah Jackson, and S Jaheem Joseph have already entered the portal. Follow here to keep track of all of the movement in and out of the transfer portal.

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