Nick Saban reacts to West Virginia re-hiring Rich Rodriguez as head coach

Rich Rodriguez will have his re-introduction to Morgantown today as the head coach again of the West Virginia Mountaineers. Now, with that, one of the state’s own and one of the best in college football has shared his thoughts on their hire.

Nick Saban spoke about the re-hiring of Rodriguez at WVU while on ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ on Friday. He began by expressing how glad he was to see him get the job back coaching that program since he left in 2007.

“I’m happy that Rich is back and I think he’ll do a great job there,” Saban said. “Him being a West Virginia person, grew up about six or seven miles from where I grew up? I’m glad that he came back. He had great success there in the past. Obviously coaching great players like (McAfee) helped him do that.”

“Other than that, we’re just excited for him,” said Saban.

Saban had more input, though, considering the role he played in the coaching search with AD Wren Baker. In that, he wanted to help the school to pick a new coach who would have all that they needed.

“Well, I think that its probably, you know, the cumulative effect of, you know, a lot of years and experience that, a), I have with working with a lot of good coaches but also watching coaches, you know, out there have success in terms of what their process is and, you know, what kind of principles and values that they try to instill in their organization, whether it’s discipline, toughness, the way you compete in a game – whatever it is,” Saban said.

“I guess I just walked to Wren a couple times about who was the best fit. Who was the best fit for West Virginia?” though Saban. “It’s not just about coaching knowledge or what your record was in some other part of the country. But how do you fit? How do you believe? How are you going to relate to the people? How are you going to be able to recruit the kind of players you need to compete against, you know, the competition and dominate the competition?”

With that said, Rodriguez’s resumé fit what they were looking for following the firing of Neal Brown. For one, he has been there before as a native of Grant Town and as the previous head coach there for seven seasons to start the 2000s. For two, he has had success and is well-regarded with a career record of 136-91 (.599), including a mark of 60-26 (.698) with six finishes with eight or more wins and with his three final seasons being with double-digit wins while at West Virginia.

“You know, I’ve always had a tremendous amount of respect for Rich,” Saban said. “You know, he came to visit us a couple times at Alabama when I was coaching there, was very helpful and beneficial to, you know, our staff. He’s a great mind. He was an innovator in the game. I mean, everybody does zone reads now like its nothing but he invented it. So, I think this guy is, you know, great.”

“I think Rich is the right guy to do that,” said Saban.

Rodriguez has some making up to do after over a decade and a half away. However, there’s already interest in him being back there, including that of Saban.