Not long after Rich Rodriguez was re-hired at West Virginia, he made a pretty bold claim: that he was committed to winning a national championship with the Mountaineers.
He repeated various versions of that claim throughout the offseason, but things didn't get off to a strong start in his first season back at the helm of the Mountaineers, as WVU limped to a disappointing 4-8 finish in what was a pretty ugly season.
Rich Rodriguez still aiming for a College Football Playoff National Championship with the West Virginia Mountaineers
But that has not stifled Rodriguez's ambitions, and he made that clear earlier this weekend as he hosted a press conference ahead of the start of spring football this Saturday. Rodriguez revisited the idea of bringing a championship to Morgantown, and assured fans that was the primary goal for the program under his leadership.
“I said this a year ago, we’re going to work as hard as we can to bring a championship to West Virginia," Rodriguez said. "It was a tough start, but I’m not backing down from that. I still think we can win the Big 12, which is a really good league. I think we can get into the College Football Playoff, and I think you can win a national championship at West Virginia. It might be difficult, but it can be done.”
WVU HC Rich Rodriguez: "I still think you can win a National Championship at West Virginia." pic.twitter.com/uZNt8RGq1p
— Joe Smith (@joesmithwrites) March 3, 2026
But it's not like Rodriguez hasn't gotten the Mountaineers pretty close to this goal before. Under his first tenure, WVU was ranked No. 2 in the natrion entering the final game of the season and was one Backyard Brawl win away from an opportunity to play for the BCS National Championship. In today's 12-team College Football Playoff era, the Mountaineers would have had their chance to play their way to a title.
Granted, that was a different conference in a different era of football, but Rodriguez has brought the Mountaineers about as close as they've ever been to the ultimate prize in college football, and he at least at one point knew how to win in Morgantown as well as anyone ever has. And he certainly still seems committed to getting back to that level.