Rich Rodriguez's return season gave WVU fans one huge reason to be excited for future

The West Virginia Mountaineers were far from perfect in Rich Rodriguez's return season to the program in 2025. And in fact, there were plenty of different points during the year that they looked downright bad.

The team finished with just four wins, marking the program's worst season in over a decade. And it can be hard to look at that outcome and find a ton of reasons to be optimistic for the future. That's completely understandable.

But Rodriguez's first stint at WVU, which ended with the Mountaineers winning two BCS bowls and coming within one win of a national championship game appearance in 2007, also began with a whimper – when he led his team to just three wins in his debut season. And there is one statistic from the 2025 season which indicates Rodriguez's second stint will play out in a similar fashion.

The West Virginia Mountaineers led the nation in offensive tempo in 2025

An analysis from Pro Football Focus (PFF) shows that no team in the FBS played as fast as the Mountaineers did last season. West Virginia. They averaged 19.3 seconds remaining on the play clock across 879 offensive snaps, which ranked first among all teams in the nation.

They also ranked third in tempo play percentage at 42.1 percent. On top of that, only 6.5 percent of the offense's snaps came with fewer than 10 seconds left on the play clock – compare that to the rest of the FBS, which sat at an average of 33 percent, and it's clear that the Mountaineers love to play at a high-tempo.

So why should that give fans hope? After all, it's not like that exactly led to success for the Mountaineers last year, and the team posted a 61.6 PFF offensive grade while committing 10 turnovers during tempo situations.

But anyone who is familiar with Rodriguez's full career, will know that he is the master of the up-tempo offense, and his most successful iterations of his offense have been some of the fastest-moving offenses in modern college football.

And while the talent might not have been in place to make it succeed last year, the fact that he was able to get his offense playing at that quick of a pace in his first season despite a complete roster rebuild in the offseason is a good sign. It also means that once he has built a full roster with the type of talent he thinks he needs to succeed, he should be able to replicate those previous top offenses.

So while there wasn't a ton of things on display last season that inspired confidence, when you look between the lines, you can see that there is still plenty of hope for a revival of the Rich Rodriguez of old in Morgantown. He just needs to get the right talent in place.

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