West Virginia set to hire North Texas head coach Ross Hodge

The West Virginia Mountaineers have found their next head coach. Ross Hodge, the head coach at North Texas, is now set to move to the Big 12 and take over the West Virginia program, per a report by Matt Norlander. He had previously been reported as a serious candidate for the job.

Ross Hodge has been the head coach at North Texas for the past two seasons. During that time, he has led the program to a 46-23 record overall there. That includes going 27-8 record and a 14-4 record in AAC play this past season. That was good for second place in the conference’s regular season standings and got them into the NIT for the second season in a row.

Prior to his time as the head coach at North Texas, Hodge was the associate head coach for the Mean Green. That was under previous head coach Grant McCasland. When he left for Texas Tech, Hodge would be promoted to the role.

Notably, Wren Baker, the current West Virginia athletic director, has experience working alongside Ross Hodge. Prior to his current role, Baker was the athletic director at North Texas. There, he crossed paths with Ross. That experience together could prove to be valuable.

Before he came to North Texas, Ross made several other stops as an assistant coach at the Division I ranks. Those were all at mid-major schools. On top of that, he was also a head coach at the NJCAA level with two different schools. While there, he led Midland College to a runner-up finish.

There is hope at West Virginia that Ross can now provide more stability. This change makes him the fourth head coach to lead the Mountaineers program in the last four seasons.

Longtime head coach Bob Huggins saw his career at West Virginia end in scandal. Following an arrest for DUI, he resigned from the role. Since then, the Mountaineers have had a new coach in every season since then. First, given the timing of Huggins’ departure, the school went with an interim head coach in Josh Eilert who replaced him for one difficult season. After that, West Virginia brought in Darian DeVries with the hopes that he would be the long-term solution at head coach. However, he quickly moved on after one season, taking the Indiana job.

West Virginia is coming off a season where the program went 19-13 overall and 10-10 in Big 12 play. That wasn’t quite good enough to make the NCAA Tournament, but it was a notable improvement from the year before. Now, the hope is that Ross Hodge will take the program another step forward.