MORGANTOWN, West Virginia — Earlier today, West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez appeared on Three Guys Before the game with Tony Caridi, Brad Howe and Hoppy Kercheval, and he discussed a variety of topics about his past and present time with the Mountaineers. One question that was asked was about his departure from WVU in 2007 to become the head coach of the Michigan Wolverines.
While there has been a great deal of speculation about exactly why he left, Rodriguez set the record straight today on the show. Kercheval asked the following of Rodriguez: “After the Pitt loss, the Michigan job became available, and I’m just wondering whether it was the lure of Michigan, whether it was differences with the administration, whether it was the Pitt loss, whether it was other issues. What specifically titled you in the direction of leaving? What were the weighing factors on you?”
Rodriguez responded by saying, “That is a loaded question and there’s probably not a simple answer. The Pitt loss was the worst professional day of my career. It always has been and hopefully always will be the worst day. I don’t want anything worse than that, right? But that really didn’t have anything to do with it. That was non-impactful on anything that happened afterwards. There was some frustration I had, you know, it wasn’t as much administrative frustration as maybe what was out there, but there was some frustration because I was losing coaches and we thought we had built one of the best programs in America and I wanted to keep in there and I wanted to keep my coaches and staff there. And well, I thought what I was asking for at the time was reasonable.”
What was Rodriguez asking for? Well, according to him, not much! Rodriguez continued: “I do remember asking for $50,000 more to pay for my staff total, not individually…$50,000 total. And I thought, ‘Jeez, we’ve had a great year’ and I thought we could probably get that. And I was told not by Eddie (Ed Pastilong, who was the director of athletics at the time) but by administration above him that they’ve done all they can for me and to take it or leave it, and they wouldn’t give me the $50,000. And I was already down because we lost to Pitt, but I still thought we had a great staff and didn’t want to lose those guys, so that was maybe the tipping point for me. But had I calmed down from the frustration from that and then saw where we were at and realized that it was better here than at Michigan…had I visited Michigan, I wouldn’t have taken the job because our facilities were okay, but Michigan’s had a whole lot of work to do too. They didn’t want to hear that because Michigan, you know, they like to be Michigan, and they don’t have to do anything different.
Rodriguez did say that there were some other things, but that ultimately, he realizes he made a mistake by leaving WVU for Michigan. “There were some other things that we had that I was a little disappointed in with some of the fundraising money that we had gotten in the 1100 Club and it wasn’t going to where it was supposed to be going to and some other things, but I just think I probably made an emotional decision at an emotional time when I should have just probably settled down a little bit and thought things through.”
When asked if there was a point when he went to Michigan when he realized he had made a mistake by leaving West Virginia? Rodriguez replied by saying, “Oh yeah, probably at the opening press conference. Miss Rita (Rodriguez) and I were walking in there and a gentlemen said, ‘Boy, we should hope you guys can fit in here!’ I just thought to myself, ‘What is this, like a cult or something? What are we talking about here?'”
