The Prodigal Son has returned. After Rich Rodriguez left WVU for Michigan after the 2007 regular season, it seemed unlikely that he would ever return. There were hard feelings on both sides, and Rodriguez burned plenty of bridges.
It turns out, it took about 17 years for those bridges to be repaired. After letting go of Neal Brown, the coaching search ended up landing on Rodriguez, who comes back to Morgantown after guiding Jacksonville State to the Conference USA Championship.
I do have plenty of thoughts – this is something that could succeed, but there is certainly potential for things to go off the rails. At the moment, though, everything is sunny. His introductory press conference was part of a Pat McAfee Show on ESPN, which McAfee took to the road and broadcast from the Coliseum. Rodriguez’s hire has the support of some big donors, including Arizona Diamondback owner Ken Kendrick, so the hope (and expectation) is that there will be more money for NIL deals that are all so important these days.
The Neal Brown era officially wrapped up last night with the Frisco Bowl in Texas, against a Top 25 Memphis squad. One online commentator noted that Neal Brown and his staff did everything right from Sunday to Friday, and there were a couple of examples of that this month. The first is that the bowl game saw very few opt-outs (Josiah Trotter was the only starter officially in the portal, and after the Rodriguez hire, he made it clear that he was open to returning to WVU). Also, WVU was able to keep most of its early recruiting class for the December signing period. They even added a couple of players. This is pretty remarkable.
Next up will be filling out the assistant coaching staff, and trying to get players from the transfer portal, along with prepping for the late signing period.
Meanwhile, there are sports going on, and there is good reason to feel optimistic about both basketball teams. The women are ranked in the Top 15 as they head into Big 12 play (it starts this Saturday at Colorado, at 8:00pm, on ESPN plus). Their only loss is to top 10 Texas by just five points. At this point, it looks like they will be contenders for the Big 12 title, even though it won’t be easy.
The men’s team is exceeding expectations. They had an incredible tournament in the Bahamas where they played three overtime games, and ended up beating Top 10 Gonzaga, and Arizona (top 25 at the time). They knocked off an improving Georgetown squad, and have cruised to easy wins over North Carolina Central and Bethune-Cookman since then. There is a concern in that Tucker DeVries has missed the last two games and has been ruled out indefinitely with an “upper body injury.” Speculation is that his shoulder injury – he had offseason surgery – is giving him problems. The optimistic hope is that he is just resting through the easy part of the schedule before Big 12 play starts; the pessimistic side is that it could hinder him the rest of the season. Regardless, the Darian DeVries era is off to a great start. Few people would have said that WVU would already be projected in the NCAA field at this point, but that is exactly the case. The Big 12 schedule is a meat grinder, but if Tucker DeVries can come back healthy, the Mountaineers could end up close to .500 in Big 12 play, which is a HUGE improvement over last year (an expected win over Mercyhurst this Sunday would match WVU’s win total from last year).
Notes: WVU has its last home game of the calendar year this Sunday against Mercyhurst. Tip is 2:00, and it is on ESPN plus…A belated congratulations to the Cross Country team. WVU finished 2nd in the National Championship in Wisconsin. That is their best ever finish, and it was a true team effort. As expected, senior Ceili McCabe was the top finisher, with a sixth place. Freshman Joy Naukot (17th) and senior Sarah Tait (34th) were First Team All-Americans, along with McCabe.
