It was a quick turnaround for West Virginia football during their most recent head coaching search.
It might not have felt like to those in the media reporting every morsel of information available by the minute, or to fans constantly watching flight trackers and refreshing their Twitter/X feed, but things moved relatively fast. Former coach Neal Brown was given his pink slip on December 1st, and native son Rich Rodriguez was returning to Morgantown for his second tenure on the WVU sidelines by December 12th.
That leaves a ton of room for error -- and truth be told, it is hard to pinpoint whether or not the decision was truly the correct choice until we see results on the field during 2025 and beyond. But as the dust settles on the hire, Rodriguez has built an impressive staff put together sneakily solid recruiting classes at both the high school level and in the transfer portal. And it appears that at least one prominent national reporter is feeling positive about the decision to bring Rodriguez back to WVU.
Dennis Dodd covers college football for CBS Sports, and is currently in his 27th-year working with the outlet -- a prominent name in college football media, Dodd is one of only seven media members to cover all 16 BCS title games. Dodd was recently tasked with issuing grades on each coaching carousel hire this offseason, and he had a favorable view on the Rich Rodriguez hire.
2025 college football coaching carousel grades: Rich Rodriguez's return to West Virginia earns perfect markhttps://t.co/3RA2gzXyIj
— Tom Fornelli (@TomFornelli) February 12, 2025
There were 27 coaching carousel hires to give a grade, including five Power 4 openings -- UCF, UNC, Purdue, Wake Forest, and WVU. And despite the Tar Heels making the splashiest hire of the offseason with NFL legend and multi-time Super Bowl Champion Bill Belichick getting the gig, Dodd felt that the Rodriguez hire holds more long-term potential for his program than any other coaching move made in recent months. For that, Dodd awarded the Rodriguez hire his only A+ grade of the hiring cycle.
"You can go home again! One of the grandfathers of the zone read spread returns to his alma mater and a place he coached from 2001-2007," wrote Dodd in his article. "Rodriguez will bring a sense of nostalgia and possibility to a program that is dying for a sniff of the old days. Rodriguez, 61, is literally the embodiment of those old days."
The perfect grade hopefully bodes well for the Mountaineers chances at success, as prominent reporters who have seen the rise and fall of numerous collegiate coaches seem to think the move will end well. Barry Odom's move to Purdue earned a grade of 'A' while Belichick's move to UNC was graded an 'A-': no other moves earned a top-tier