West Virginia hires Rich Rodriguez as next head football coach

West Virginia has hired Jacksonville State’s Rich Rodriguez as its next head football coach.

Rodriguez served as the Mountaineers’ head coach from 2001 until 2007 and will replace Neal Brown, who held the position for the past six seasons.

ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported on Dec. 11 that WVU was targeting its former headman to return to his old position and that a deal was working toward being completed. That deal appears to have fallen into place.

The 61-year-old head coach won 60 games compared to 26 losses during his tenure. He led the Mountaineers to three 10-win seasons in a row during his tenure. More than half (34) of those wins came in conference play.

Rodriguez’s leadership saw WVU earn four AP Top 25 finishes in his seven seasons there.

He also won the Big East four times and took the Mountaineers to six straight bowl games including a Sugar Bowl and a Fiesta Bowl. However, he left for Michigan before coaching in that Fiesta Bowl.

Rodriguez moved on from West Virginia in 2008 to take the Michigan job, but never found the same success in Ann Arbor. After that, he would also become the head coach at Arizona, an assistant at several schools including Ole Miss, and in 2022 he once again became a head coach at Jacksonville State.

With Jacksonville State, Rich Rodriguez has helped the program transition from FCS to FBS, and in 2024 he led the Gamecocks to a C-USA conference title. He’s won nine games in all three of his seasons there.

Before being hired at West Virginia the first time around, Rodriguez cut his teeth on the NAIA coaching scene with the Glenville State Pioneers. He also led the Salem Tigers for one season before leaving the NAIA ranks to become the offensive coordinator at Tulane and later Clemson under Tommy Bowden. That included leading the Green Wave to an unbeaten season in 1998.

On3’s Dan Morrison contributed to this report.