Staff Directory
Rich Rodriguez
- Title:
- Head Coach
- Phone:
- (304) 293-4194
Follow @RealCoachRod
The Rodriguez File
Personal Information |
|
|---|---|
| Hometown: | Grant Town, W.Va. |
| Education: | West Virginia, 1986 (Bachelor's) Salem, 1987 (Master's) |
| Playing Career: | West Virginia, 1981-84 |
| Wife: | Rita |
| Children: | Raquel, Rhett |
Coaching History |
|
|---|---|
| 1985 | West Virginia - Student Assistant Coach |
| 1986-87 | Salem - Assistant Coach |
| 1988 | Salem - Head Coach |
| 1989 | West Virginia - Volunteer Assistant Coach |
| 1990-96 | Glenville State - Head Coach |
| 1997-98 | Tulane - Assistant Coach |
| 1999-00 | Clemson - Assistant Coach |
| 2001-07 | West Virginia - Head Coach |
| 2008-10 | Michigan - Head Coach |
| 2012-17 | Arizona - Head Coach |
| 2019 | Ole Miss - Offensive Coordinator/ Quarterbacks Coach |
| 2021 | Louisiana-Monroe - Assistant Head Coach/Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach |
| 2022-24 | Jacksonville State - Head Coach |
| 2025-Present | West Virginia - Head Coach |
The coach has never wavered in his approach. His personality, coaching style and drive to develop players and staff and earn program success are displayed with the same consistency from when he started years ago until today.
Last season, Rodriguez moved into No. 2 on the school’s active win list. His program finished with nationally recognized wins against No. 22 Houston on the road and at home against Pitt in the 108th Backyard Brawl.
The architect of the no-huddle, zone-read, spread-option offense started his coaching career as the youngest head coach in the nation at 24 and is currently ranked No. 3 in Power Four for most wins by an active coach.
With every stop this football CEO makes, he continues to keep building programs based on a culture of hard work and his hard-edge, earned-success, hold-the-rope and spot-the-ball mentality that he instills in each student-athlete. With each year, he continues to add wins and honors and his teams play at hall of fame levels.
He has spent his entire 30-plus year career, including 28 as a head coach, showcasing an outstanding resume as a coach. Rodriguez is a master tactician, innovator, developer of talent, program builder and winner.
Rodriguez has guided six different schools during his head coaching tenure, producing a 194-137-2 overall record and winning nearly 60% of his games. He has earned conference or national coach of the year honors seven times (WVIAC 1993, 1994; Big East 2003, 2005; Pac-12 2014; C-USA 2024 and NAIA National Coach of the Year in 1993).
He has led his squads to eight or more wins 15 times, 10 or more wins five times and has won the conference or division championship seven times (Glenville State 1993-96, West Virginia 2003-05, ‘07, Arizona 2014, Jacksonville State 2022, ‘24).
He has led his programs to 14 bowl games, including three BCS games (2006 Sugar, 2008 Fiesta, 2014 Fiesta) and two NAIA Division I playoff appearances (the championship game in 1993 and the quarterfinals in 1994). He has coached offenses that have produced 10 conference players of the year, has coached 56 NFL players and more than 30 All-Americans during his career.
Rodriguez has coached arguably two of the greatest dual-threat quarterbacks in the history of college football (Pat White – West Virginia, Denard Robinson, Michigan) and several other outstanding signal-callers (Shaun King – Tulane, Woody Dantzler – Clemson, Rasheed Marshall – West Virginia and Kahlil Tate – Arizona).
He returned to West Virginia in 2025 after leading Jacksonville State to outstanding success, guiding the Gamecocks from NCAA FCS level to the FBS ranks over three seasons. The 2024 Conference USA Coach of the Year compiled a 27-10 record (three straight nine-win seasons), earned the 2024 C-USA regular season and conference championships, won the 2023 New Orleans Bowl and had a first-place finish in the Atlantic Sun Conference in 2022.
In 2024, the Gamecocks boasted eight first or second team all-conference members and three all-freshman team members. The 2023 season saw the Gamecocks make history under Rodriguez, becoming the first program to win a bowl game in its first season of FBS competition. In 2022, the Gamecocks posted a 9-2 record and a 5-0 mark in ASUN Conference play en route to the conference title to wrap up the school’s FCS Era.
Prior to Jacksonville State, he served as the associate head coach, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Louisiana-Monroe, where he was new head coach Terry Bowden’s choice to lead the Warhawks’ offense in rebuilding after ULM suffered a winless campaign in 2020. The Warhawks improved in every offensive category in 2021. He spent the 2019 season as the offensive coordinator at Ole Miss.
At Arizona, Rodriguez helped establish the Wildcats as one of the most explosive offensive programs in the Pac-12. During his tenure, Arizona tied or set more than 100 offensive school records and all-time leaders were set for career rushing and all-purpose yardage.
Rodriguez led the Wildcats to a 43-35 record and five bowl games. Arizona won the 2014 Pac-12 South Division title and advanced to the Fiesta Bowl, finishing the season with a 10-4 mark, one of just three 10-win seasons in the program’s history. He was named the Pac-12 Coach of the Year at the season’s end.
He compiled 33 wins in his first four years with the Wildcats, the most in school history over a four-year period. The Wildcats also defeated a top-10 team and advanced to a bowl game in each of those four seasons, the only time either of those feats have happened in school history.
Prior to Arizona, he spent three seasons at Michigan, where he coached quarterback Denard Robinson. As a sophomore in 2010, Robinson set the single-season Division I FBS record for rushing yards by a quarterback and became the first player in NCAA history to pass and rush for 1,500 yards on his way to earning first-team All-America honors.
Rodriguez was 60-26 in seven seasons at West Virginia, where he won the Big East Conference championship four times (2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007) and was named the Big East’s Coach of the Year in 2003 and 2005. The Mountaineers won the 2006 Sugar Bowl and the 2008 Fiesta Bowl.
His 2007 Mountaineers had a third-straight 11-win season, winning the Big East Conference championship and facing Big 12 Champion Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. The Lambert Trophy winners, signifying the Eastern college supremacy, WVU was ranked the entire season and was as high as No. 1 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll heading into the final regular season game and finished the season No. 6 in both polls.
The offense set records for most points in the season, most touchdowns and most rushing touchdowns. Pat White finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting after winning his second straight Big East Offensive Player of the Year award and Ryan Stanchek and Pat McAfee were named to All-American teams and Scooter Berry was named to freshman All-American teams.
In 2006, West Virginia posted another 11-win campaign (the first consecutive 10-win totals in school history), beating Georgia Tech in the Gator Bowl and finishing 10th in the final polls. Behind consensus All-Americans Steve Slaton and Dan Mozes (the Rimington Award winner) and BIG EAST Player of the Year Pat White, the Rodriguez offense again ranked among the nation’s most potent and dangerous.
In 2005, picked to finish third in the new BIG EAST alignment, Rodriguez and his Mountaineers ran the table in the conference, going 7-0 in league play to win a third consecutive BIG EAST championship and first outright title since 1993.
West Virginia, with a 10-1 regular season record, was undefeated on the road despite playing a nucleus of freshmen and sophomores. The young Mountaineers were invited to play SEC champion Georgia in the Nokia Sugar Bowl, and WVU stunned the higher-ranked Bulldogs 38-35 in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome for West Virginia’s first BCS game win.
Finishing the season 11-1, West Virginia was ranked fifth and sixth in the final polls.
West Virginia returned to the Gator Bowl following the 2004 season that saw the Mountaineers tie for the BIG EAST championship once again. WVU was ranked as high as sixth during the regular season, spending 15 straight weeks in the Top 25, finishing with an 8-4 mark.
In 2003, replacing 22 seniors (11 of them starters), repeating that success seemed unlikely, especially after the young WVU squad started the campaign 1-4. Entering the BIG EAST portion of the schedule, however, Rodriguez convinced his team of the opportunity ahead, and the rest proved one of the great chapters in West Virginia football history.
After losing a remarkable game 22-20 at No. 2 Miami, West Virginia won seven straight games from that point, posting a 6-1 conference record and tying Miami for the BIG EAST championship to earn a New Year’s Day Gator Bowl berth
In 2002, just his second season at WVU, Rodriguez engineered the best turnaround in BIG EAST history, as the Mountaineers worked together for a 9-4 record, a BIG EAST runner-up finish, back-to-back road wins over ranked teams at Virginia Tech and Pitt and a Continental Tire Bowl berth. West Virginia finished second in the nation in rushing at 283 yards per game, and the Mountaineers, with a stable offense and an aggressive defense, were fourth nationally in turnover margin. That led to a six-game improvement in the win column, one of the three best in the nation.
Following the 2002 season, Rodriguez was named BIG EAST coach of the year by The Sporting News and state college coach of the year for all sports by the West Virginia Sports Writers Association.
He received the 2003 Frank Loria Award for coaching distinction from the West Virginia chapter of the National Football Foundation. In 2003, he was the unanimous choice of his peers for BIG EAST Coach of the Year, and the District I coach of the year for the American Football Coaches Association, one of five district AFCA winners, and for his efforts in guiding the Mountaineers to an 11-1 mark in 2005, he was once again awarded league coach of the year honors. He began a term in 2005 on the AFCA Board of Directors.
Before accepting the position at West Virginia, Rodriguez was Tommy Bowden’s offensive coordinator and associate head coach at Clemson in 1999 and 2000, when the Tigers recorded a 15-9 record over two seasons. He went to Clemson from Tulane, where he was Bowden’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 1997 and 1998. He helped lead the Green Wave to a 19-4 mark, including a 12-0 season, Conference USA Championship and Liberty Bowl victory in 1998.
Rodriguez went to Tulane after a seven-year stint as the head coach at NAIA Glenville State in Glenville, West Virginia. His teams won or shared four consecutive West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles and he was named WVIAC Coach of the Year in 1993 and 1994, as well as the NAIA Coach of the Year after leading his team to a national runner-up finish.
His head coaching career started in 1998, when Salem College made the 24-year-old Rodriguez the youngest head coach in college football after he’d served the previous two seasons as an assistant at the school.
But the Rodriguez roots are deepest in the Mountain State, where his career record in 16 seasons as a college head coach here is 109-70-2.
Rodriguez was a three-time letterman at defensive back for the Mountaineers from 1982-84, playing in the Gator, Hall of Fame and Bluebonnet Bowls. He came to WVU as a walk-on, earned a scholarship from Coach Don Nehlen and recorded 54 career tackles and three interceptions, including a team-season-long 43-yard pick against Pacific in 1983 and a 14-yard interception in 1984’s 17-14 win over Penn State, WVU’s first defeat of the Nittany Lions in 29 years.
After serving two seasons as a student assistant coach and graduating from WVU in 1986 with a degree in physical education and safety, he began his coaching career at Salem College (now Salem University) as secondary coach and special teams coordinator. In 1987, he served as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator at the school while completing a master’s degree in physical education.
In 1988, he was promoted to head coach at Salem, becoming the youngest college head coach in America at the age of 24. He was 2-8 during a trying season after an announcement that the school would drop football at the end of the year.
Returning to WVU as a volunteer assistant coach in 1989, he worked with the outside linebackers that season, as the Mountaineers went 8-3-1 and earned a spot in the Gator Bowl.
From 1990-96, Rodriguez turned around the football fortunes at Glenville State College, where as head coach he earned four consecutive WVIAC conference championships from 1993-96, Glenville’s first league titles since 1959.
The Pioneers were twice a participant in the national playoffs, advancing to the 1993 NAIA national championship game.
Rodriguez’ record at Glenville was 43-28-2 in seven seasons. He was named WVIAC coach of the year in 1993 and 1994 and NAIA national coach of the year in 1993; his players set five national career records for Division II. He coached three players who earned WVIAC Player of the Year honors: Jed Drenning (1992-93), Chris George (1994) and Scott Otis (1995).
Rodriguez, who received the state College Coach of the Year award for all sports from the West Virginia Sports Writers Association in 1993 (an honored he repeated in 2003 and 2005 at WVU) also served as Glenville’s athletic director in 1995-96. He was inducted into the Glenville Sports Hall of Fame in October, 2003.
A native of Grant Town, West Virginia, in Marion County, Rodriguez is a 1981 graduate of North Marion High School. He was a four-sport letterman and an all-state honoree in football and basketball, leading Coach Roy Michael’s Huskies to the 1980 Class AAA state football championship
Rich and his wife Rita, a native of Jane Lew, West Virginia, have two children, Raquel and Rhett.
Career Record
School |
Record |
Conference
|
Postseason/Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salem | 2-8 | 2-5 | |
| Glenville State | 43-28-2 | 32-15 | 1993 NAIA National Championship Appearance, 1994 NAIA National Runner-up Appearance, Won or Tied Four WVIAC Championships |
| West Virginia | 60-26 | 34-14 | Led the Mountaineers to six bowl appearances, including winning the 2005 Sugar Bowl (Georgia) and 2006 Gator Bowl (Georgia Tech), Four Top 25 finishes in the national rankings, including three in the Top 10 (No. 25 in 2002, highest ranking of No. 5 in 2005, No. 10 in 2006), Won or Tied for four Big East Conference Championships (2003, 2004, 2005, 2007) |
| Michigan | 15-22 | 6-18 | Played in the 2010 Gator Bowl |
| Arizona | 43-35 | 24-30 | The Wildcats played in five bowl games and won three (2012, 2013, 2015), Arizona won the Pac-12 South (2014), earned a trip to the Fiesta Bowl and finished the season ranked No. 19 in AP Poll and No. 17 in the Coaches Poll. |
| Jacksonville State | 27-10 | 18-3 | Led the Gamecocks to three nine-win seasons, two conference championships (2022 Atlantic Sun, 2024 Conference USA) and two bowl games, including winning in the 2023 New Orleans Bowl. |
| West Virginia | 4-8 | 2-7 | |
| Career Totals |
194-137-2
(.580)
|
118-92 (.562) |
Year-by-Year Record
West Virginia
| Year | School | Record | Conference Record |
Postseason |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Salem | 2-8 | 2-5 | |
| Salem Total | 2-8 (.200) | 2-5 (.286) | ||
| 1990 | Glenville State | 1-7-1 | 1-5 | |
| 1991 | Glenville State | 4-5-1 | 3-4 | |
| 1992 | Glenville State | 6-4 | 5-2 | |
| 1993 | Glenville State | 10-3 | 6-1 | NAIA National Runner-Up, NAIA National Coach of the Year, WVIAC Champions, WVIAC Coach of the Year |
| 1994 | Glenville State | 8-3 | 5-1 | NAIA National Quarterfinalists, WVIAC Co-Champions, WVIAC Coach of the Year |
| 1995 | Glenville State | 8-2 | 6-1 | WVIAC Co-Champions |
| 1996 | Glenville State | 6-4 | 6-1 | WVIAC Co-Champions |
| Glenville State Totals | 43-28-2 (.603) | 32-15 (.681) | ||
| 2001 | West Virginia | 3-8 | 1-6 | |
| 2002 | West Virginia | 9-4 | 6-1 | Final Ranking - No. 25 AP Poll/No. 20 Coaches, Continental Tire Bowl |
| 2003 | West Virginia | 8-5 | 6-1 | Big East Conference Co-Champion, Big East Coach of the Year, Toyota Gator Bowl |
| 2004 | West Virginia | 8-4 | 4-2 | Big East Conference Co-Champion, Toyota Gator Bowl |
| 2005 | West Virginia | 11-0 | 7-0 | Final Rankings - No. 5 AP Poll, No. 6 Coaches, Big East Conference Champions, Big East Coach of the Year, Nokia Sugar Bowl Champions |
| 2006 | West Virginia | 11-2 | 5-2 | Final Rankings - No. 10 AP Poll, No. 10 Coaches, Big East Conference Co-Champion, Toyota Gator Bowl Champions |
| 2007 | West Virginia | 10-2 | 5-2 | Final Rankings - No. 11 AP Poll, No. 9 Coaches, Big East Conference Champions Tostitos Fiesta Bowl |
| West Virginia Totals | 60-26 (.698) | 32-15 (.681) |
||
| 2008 | Michigan | 3-9 | 2-6 | |
| 2009 | Michigan | 5-7 | 1-7 | |
| 2010 | Michigan | 7-6 | 3-5 | Toyota Gator Bowl |
| Michigan Totals | 15-22 (.405) |
6-18 (.333) |
||
| 2012 | Arizona | 8-5 | 4-5 | Gildan New Mexico Bowl Champions |
| 2013 | Arizona | 8-5 | 4-5 | Advocare V100 Bowl Champions |
| 2014 | Arizona | 10-4 | 7-2 | Final Rankings - No. 19 AP Poll, No. 17 Coaches Poll, Pac-12 South Champions, Pac-12 Coach of the Year, Vizio Fiesta Bowl |
| 2015 | Arizona | 7-6 | 3-6 | Gildan New Mexico Champions |
| 2016 | Arizona | 3-9 | 1-8 | |
| 2017 | Arizona | 7-6 | 5-4 | Foster Farms Bowl |
| Arizona Totals | 43-35 (.551) |
24-30 (.444) |
||
2022 |
Jacksonville State |
9-2 |
5-0 |
Atlantic Sun Champions |
2023 |
Jacksonville State |
9-4 |
6-2 |
New Orleans Bowl Champions |
2024 |
Jacksonville State |
9-4 |
7-1 |
Conference USA Champions, Conference USA Coach of the Year,
|
| Jacksonville State Totals | 27-10 (.730) |
18-3 (.857) |
||
2025 |
West Virginia |
4-8 |
2-7 |
|
| Career Totals |
194-137-2
(.580)
|
118-92 (.562) |
||
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A Conversation with Wren Baker | Big 12 Football Media Days
Wednesday, July 08
Coach Rich Rodriguez Press Conference | Big 12 Football Media Days
Wednesday, July 08
Steve Sabins, Gavin Kelly, Armani Guzman, Matthew Graveline | College World Series | June 17
Tuesday, July 07
WRES: Gunner Andrick
Tuesday, July 07
