It has been a very disappointing year for WVU football fans. The Mountaineers started 2-4 and have been outscored 144-58 in those four losses. And it appears several people around the country are waking up to just how bad it has been for West Virginia under Rich Rodriguez in his first season back in Morgantown.
Earlier this week, Sports Illustrated's senior college football writer Pat Forde ranked notable first-year head coaches and how their seasons have gone to this point. And coming in next-to-last on the list was the Mountaineers' head coach Rodriguez.
To no surprise, Bill Belichick – a legendary former eight-time Super Bowl champion and current head coach at UNC – ranked as the worst on the list of first-year head coaches. The decision to rank Rodriguez was seemingly reached from a combination of the non-conference loss suffered at Ohio and just how bad the Mountaineers have looked against their conference opponents.
“At least he won the Backyard Brawl. That’s really all Mountaineers fans can say about RichRod 2.0 so far, as a season that figured to be a struggle is delivering on that expectation. An injury to quarterback Nicco Marchiol, coupled with an increasingly porous defense, has led to three noncompetitive defeats in three Big 12 games. And then there was that nonconference loss to Ohio. Fortunately for West Virginia, Oklahoma State is around to finish last in the league. Unfortunately for West Virginia, it doesn’t play the Cowboys,” Forde wrote about Rodriguez.
Another coach who used to coach a Division I program in the state of West Virginia was even ranked above Rodriguez. Former Marshall head coach Charles Huff, who is now at Southern Mississippi in the Sun Belt Conference, was ranked two spots above Rodriguez. Bringing a lot of his players that helped win the Sun Belt Championship in 2024, Huff has started the year 4-2 at Southern Miss and is doing better than his previous employer, Marshall, who is 2-3.
As disheartening a season as it has been for WVU, there is still reason to believe in the future of this program. Following the announcement of 16 new scholarships for football and 140 total scholarships across several sports, and the news about Jahiem White is rumored to be set to return for fall camp in 2026, several things are trending in the right direction for the WVU football program.
If Rodriguez can fix some issues in the bye week and get things done in his winnable games and get an upset victory over a team like TCU, Houston, Arizona State, or Texas Tech, he might have a chance to earn a little more respect from the national media – but it's hard to blame those unimpressed with what they've seen so far.