Relatively Sports Ep 28: Rich Rodriguez Joins the Show

Intro [Music] thank you [Music] thank you all right all right so here's what's so crazy and again this is a beautiful thing to have the opportunity to have my guy one for me one of the greatest college coaches of all time because of everything he's accomplished no matter where he's he's been he's won so he's a fan favorite to me uh I'm a big Rich ride guy so this is going to be uh this is blessed and I'm highly favored to have him on my show relatively sports with Eugene Napoleon none other than Rich Rodriguez what's going on Coach yeah Jason and I appreciate the words and and back to you one of the the I think one of the greatest college running backs ever obviously in the history of West Virginia but also if you look at the stats what he did in college football just and uh I just I was saying that some of your highlights the other day here's what I didn't realize how big those damn shoulder pads were I mean all right we had neck rolls and shoulder pads and we had all this equipment I'm like how did we even run but somehow my man can still run fast with all that gear on him I know nowadays they don't wear nothing but it was that yeah that was fun to see absolutely somebody had brought that to my attention and uh I actually had to think about it so I was trying it was a younger part I was trying to play it off like they wasn't that big and I said you know what whatever you say something is not that it's like yeah that was really big thing it was a big old pants back in the day when we wore neck rolls and and actually had to cover our knees because that turf was so damn hard and and just like a concrete thing and yeah back in the guild right those were the good old days and speaking of which I want to go back as far as when you came in a high school coach was West Virginia always your primary stop yeah you know it's I was just telling a group of folks we had in the other day for a visit we had a bunch of invited Walk-Ons coming and I told him I said I was a invited to walk onto West Virginia and I only lived 45 minutes away but it might have been 12 hours away because I never got up that was the big city you know I lived in a little Grant Town West Virginia and so without a chance to go up there as a walk-on and I said my best opportunity for me to climb the depth chart was that my defensive back coach was so mean you remember Bill McConnell oh my gosh he was mean he was so mean that I was moving up the depth chart by default because two guys in front of me quit and I'm like if I keep hanging on I'm gonna get me a scholarship to start so that's my my voting but I loved it up there I mean the stadium was doing and it uh it worked out good Richs time at WVU absolutely you know what's so crazy when me and a b transferred over from Pitt and we came over to WVU and that's when you and I first met we've known each other and I was thinking about this my God 40 years believable but you want to know something that speaks to how strong bonds and relationships really are you know and I think Eugene you've mentioned a lot of people have asked about you know my time as a coach there back in early 2000s and my time as a player you know what stood out the most and it was everybody talks about team and family and all that all the coaches preached that but it truly was them I mean guys truly cared about each other back then when we were playing we had to live together for three years in Towers dormitory right and so you got close that way and then uh when I had those good teams in the early 2000s they all had a special bond and cared about each other and had great leadership and I think that state the state of West Virginia leads to that because it is a big family oriented state where everybody kind of takes care of everybody else and there's a lot of pride in who they are and who we are and I know we had that when I was playing there and fortunately we had that when I was coaching there as well Richs goal at WVU that's important and that's something I think I think when you move on as a player and you still have the relationship with your prior coach and it's extended over the years that's when you know you made the right decision and that's when you know you've been around the right people um that's exactly right because a lot I've had some folks younger coaches say well coach what's your goal you know as far as the weather's winning championships and all that I said you know this sounds kind of pollyannaished I said but really my number one overarching goal as a coach is that for every player that played in our program and if they come back 10 15 20 years from now and said if they could do it over again they do it at the same place with the same people then we know we did our job that means they enjoyed the experience now winning helps the experience right so that's always a big part of it but it's more than that and if you got uh you know guys saying boy I love my time there I do it all over again with those folks then we know as a staff we did what we were supposed to do by that guy right Building Legacy and that's the most important thing I mean at the end of the day it yeah it's truly building Legacy in two ways for me to have the ability to come back 40 and be tied to you for 40 freaking years as a friend man you have no idea what that means to me and then conversely to see what you're still doing 40 years later yeah you know when you stop to think about it from that perspective that's truly a blessing coach it really is yeah every every year is the head coach in college they're like dog years they're like seven years so I really have 160 years of experience but no the truth is you know I've been blessed you know this will be my I guess 26 years the head coach but I tell everybody I said if all you did was the same thing every year never learned or grew you just have one year experience to repeat it 20 times or 25 times you know so I like to think you know every year I I expect my players to get better but I expect myself to get better so I've got to be a better Coach and I'm a better Coach than I was a year ago 10 years ago or 20 years ago that's the same thing I asked for our staff and same thing I asked for our players and and I think I think we're there you know I'm you know I've got a lot more time behind me than ahead of me but uh I still I feel great where I'm at I feel great with the staff and I have great memories too you know everybody asked me about our time at West Virginia as a player it was great and as a coach it was great I I truly and probably have not expressed this enough I truly appreciated all the support I got when I was there you know you know those seven years were great and I love the people still my home my mom's still there my brother's still there you know my closest friends are still there in the state and you know it's a great place but I I really probably you know there's mistakes made and all this and stuff but uh when I left but I I one of the biggest regrets and mistakes is I didn't tell everybody thank you for the support because I had tremendous support while I was there Humility yeah yeah and but you know what it's interesting and I'm glad that you have expressed that in many different times in many different ways because that that's important obviously to me gratitude means a lot and when you tell somebody humility and and mistakes and all that kind of stuff that stuff means a lot now unfortunately for those who don't understand that what can you do you know what I mean what do you do but you know yeah what was nice when we were there um back was the the former players that every every former player in every school always they want to be on the sidelines they want to be you know out you know make sure you get attention taken care of and make sure the coaches are listening to them that's the same everywhere but I I was easy for me to be the coach and the former player there because I knew the guys and I knew where they were coming from and they knew where I was coming from and so from that respect everybody says coaching at your alma mater the biggest benefit was that that you understood the lay of the land so to speak but also you understood the former players and where they're coming from and and so from that stand and the former players you know Eugene yourself your class all your teammates the guys I played with and the guys afterwards you know we had a good relationship and guys understood you know what can we do to help and that's all former players really want no matter where you're at they they want their school to succeed and they want to know how they can help and you know a lot of ways they could help just by being positive uh you know obviously if they see a good player send a good player and just really more than anything as you mentioned earlier saying listen I had a great experience there I love the town morgantown's a great town the school's a great school and playing football there is like being a pro athlete from the standpoint if you've got everybody's attention you do in the whole state Conference realignment absolutely and it's funny I want to transition to that point um so it's a great segue into this you coaching in the Big East and then seeing the transition from the Big East to where I like to call the conference realignment at this particular point because everybody's everywhere to see uh WVU go from the Big East and you make this transition into the Big 12 for instance I know you're and I want to congratulate you because you're about to do that right now you're going to transition to it into a bigger conference I would imagine right that is a bigger conference FBS how do you do that when you're what do you do as far as recruiting to get your players prepared to make that jump yeah along the same lines like I'm to the point now I'm kind of like a lot of Duke coaches do coach speak I'm I'm past that I just tell like like it is and and I've heard a lot of people wonder like why is West Virginia Big 12 and I I was there when all this conference realign was going on and I remember we had conversations with the big issue you had your football schools you had your basketball schools and you had Notre Dame and everybody was out for themselves and at the time some of the schools in the Big East said well you know we'll just all hang together and you know Kumbaya and all that and I said that ain't gonna happen I remember telling our Administration I said they're going to jump as soon as they can jump and we got to look out what's best for West Virginia and hell don't worry about the rest of those other schools because they ain't worried about us and uh at the time that's what happened you know pit jumps Syracuse jump and and you know the Big East from what was going to be a really really big league was was folding up and I remember in our administration at the time agreed I thought agreed with me but it happened so fast I said we better get in and get it lined up with something and after I left that's when the Big 12 came up and pieces why did we join the Big 12 he didn't have much choice you tried to get an ACC they wouldn't take us try to get in the Big Ten they wouldn't take us and the Big East wouldn't stick together and and it was too many different factions football basketball you know Notre Dame been an independent that everybody wasn't going to go in the same direction with that and we had a good product to sell but it was kind of like we were going to be on our own and uh I don't I don't know the Big 12 all the power five conferences pay a whole lot better now than it did back then uh so you know we're getting you know West Virginia's getting paid pretty good money but still there's a danger of what's going to happen next and everybody's got it you know sounds bad but every school has to be selfish in their decision and uh when when West Virginia got in the Big 12 they had to do that because there wasn't much options I don't know if there's going to be any options going forward but I think West Virginia you know is a natural for the ACC you know people say it ain't good enough academic for the Big Ten hell was good enough for me and you right and our degrees so you know absolutely it's the other ones so I I don't know if it's uh ever gonna if West Virginia is going to be able to our school's going to be able to get into the ACC or if the Big 12 is going to be able to compete with the other ones uh the SEC and all that but I think you got a good enough product that you know like power whatever that power five thing is W should be they should be in it for sure I wanna I'm telling you Jacksonville State again I want to congratulate you because I see what you're doing with your program at Jack State and it's incredible you know again transitioning into a bigger conference FBS ball what are you looking most forward to with that transition that's good and uh thanks for asking you know we you know Jacksonville State has always they went up they wanted to provision two way back when then they moved out to one double A and one that had success and then uh I got the job a year ago as uh the school said listen we're gonna build a brand new facility 40 million dollar facility we're going to move up to FPS division 1A level and be in Conference USA and that's a process and I think maybe because I had a lot or have a lot of division one experiences probably why they wanted us to come because you know they had the coach performing had great success and you know coming here we told our guys I said the most important thing is a coach when you get take over a program particularly if a program that's going to be moving up you got to establish the right culture you got to have great players you know that you got to have a great staff but more than anything you got to have the right culture the right environment and the first year is always the hardest to get that established right and so I was really proud of our players really proud our staff that we went nine and two we won the conference that we went undefeated in that but more than anything the culture and the environment that I thought you had to have to build a champion membership 1A program was already is already established now you got to keep working on it's an everyday thing right you know it's like enforcing discipline I tell our guys you know discipline is not a negative thing it's a form of love you know when you when you get your guys to be disciplined all right you're actually doing them a favor you're doing this like the the guy yes last night's games outside from uh from Cincinnati right or uh yeah you know the penalty he had a great game number 58 had sacks all these all replace all over the field had a great game and unfortunately he had a penalty you know bad penalty toward the end it costed 15 yards in Kansas City Keith and he's you could tell he was distraught by it and all he's got people going to talk about is that penalty when he had a great game and not that he doesn't have discipline but the example is if he had that self-discipline where he wouldn't have taken that penalty all right then all we would have been talking about they might have had a chance to win the game so I tell our guys you know discipline is a form of love and sometimes it's not easy to take but we're going to enforce it and that's what we did this year with our team I really like the culture where we're at and now we've got to build our facilities we gotta we gotta recruit at a high level but uh it's coming here and it's uh it's pretty exciting Transfer Portal and that's the thing you just hit it on so many different things but I want to get to the state of recruiting because we all know that this nil stuff and the transfer portal what do you think about the transfer portal let's tackle that first what's your thoughts on the transfer portal well I think it makes it uh I understand the reason behind that because if guys aren't happy you don't but I mean I think it's made I mean you follow the pro leagues of people that have long success you know they don't have open free agency every year you got to have some kind of rules and guardrails and plus I think it makes it easy for a lot of guys say well shoot I'm not playing I quit I go somewhere else it makes it too easy for kids to quit and not fight through things you know it's like it for you know a lot of times coaches now are saying well you got to coach the guys on your team too or you got to keep recruiting them to stay honorable that if you do you got the wrong guy you got the wrong guys on your team I think you got to coach them all treat them fairly you know you know you got to communicate better you know everyone says what's the difference between coaching guys when we played in coaching guys now I said 20 30 years ago you tell a guy okay run through the wall for instance and they'll do it know what questions asked now they'll still do it and they want to know why and if they don't give the right answer they'll go on their phone and Google and say well that ain't what it says right here on Google so he got it they're smarter young guys are smarter but you still got gotta try to get a sense of loyalty these guys that are just jump and ship well I'm not getting paid enough I'm not playing enough and I'm I know I'm an 18-0 true freshman I can't bench 200 pounds but I should be the guy and I'm like you know no you you know work your way up to that and do that I think you know I don't know there's these answers but I said okay let everybody transfer if they want and but they have to sit out of here and not count against their five years of Eligibility because what's happening now all these kids are leaving the academic piece is not getting lost in the shuffle they the credits aren't transferring you know they're not going to be able to graduate and I said what about this okay let them transfer be on scholarship that doesn't count until you're five years to play four years and move on that way instead of just jumping because I think I can play over here and you know I don't want to wait and and all that kind of stuff it's just it's made a little bit of a mess and there's a lot of tampering going on uh coaches going through different channels to recruit guys to their team and you know it's a bad luck and the same thing with nio before you even bring it up you know I'm in favor of doing everything you can to take care of college athletes pay them off something but pay them all the same and then if you want to do something get a reward system okay if they you know if they play somebody plays and they win whatever and you want to get they can give some kind of a bonus but it should be the same for every right team you can't have a pro league without a salary cap all right and a roster size limit I mean one thing about it what's the stop a team now to say Okay I want to you know take care of our players but I want to have instead of 85 guys on a scholarship I want to have 125. so GoFundMe 45 more scholarships that way I'll have 45 more players than you do if somebody gets hurt or somebody leaves I got somebody plugged right in there every every league has a roster cap a certain number of guys you know now it's open to Heaven somebody just yeah I could have 150 guys if I want it's crazy yeah there's two things to that which is interesting I I said about the transfer portal piece the educational component is being lost in that transition so for me I said if a guy wants to transfer from from school a to go to school B that's fine perfectly fine but guess what you better make sure that in order to you to be eligible to play at school B your GPS be a certain GPA period and and if not you got to be you have to sit out that way it'll stop God that'll stop about 45 of people jumping in that portal because you know good and going well you don't have the the GPA to do such to make yourself eligible to play that was one on the nil deal like you just said coach I'm good with that name like listen look you bring a certain level of value to to a a university or college that's fine here's the catch-22 there are certain schools that I know for sure and you know this as well that the nio was prevalent way before yeah so let's be clear about that yeah let's be clear about it I've always said give a kid a little bit more above his or her scholarship for room and board let's say if you said it's it's 10 grand more than what you're going to get on your scholarship that's fine you have a certain GPA we're going to give you ten thousand dollars more for your room and board we all know it doesn't cost that much to live off campus right so even if you did that if the NCAA instituted that I don't know if you would have had what we have right now but now you don't let you don't open Pandora's Box that's right if you can't you can't put the genie back in a bottle and you know another part that you know how how's a lot you know I think still the most important thing you have in your program is the culture in your environment so you're going to pay his hot shot freshman a hundred thousand dollars and the guy's a three-year starter and still in front of him he's not getting anything I mean that's not the right culture you have that's why the NFL you know they have a salary cap and they have a structure or a rookie cap you know the starting quarterback's going to get 60 of your salary cap the third team freshman rookie quarterback is not going to get that and so there's a and they know how to do that you know in college we just opened everything up and said well geez you know we can't not pay them yes you can let's re let you know you can't do the pay for play so let's not kid ourselves but let's let's come up with reward system what if you graduate you get a bonus of twenty thousand dollars or something and there's so many more benefits that athletes are not getting mistreated let's let's get that out in the open right now they've got more now than they've ever gotten that's a good thing we're on a great path right there you don't need to pay them like pros there's a pro leagues out there you know all you got if you're good enough you can go pro in three years I think one rule they should change if they think they're good enough to go pro out of high school let them go pro why do we why do we make them wait three years if they're good enough after two years like a Herschel Walker or let them go let's not make them wait anything and uh it's the same way with this uh we're getting ready to have signing date people ask my opinion on Sunday I know you're giving a lot of subjects I'm like there should be no signing day signing if you're a talented musician or an artist and you know that field you don't wait till a certain date where you sign a contract two sides come to agreement and you sign the deal and if you want to break the deal then you got to pay for it that pay says well coaches can move from here and there and trust me I know all about that deal well if you break the contract you got to pay right so let's just start start we're gonna have to start signing guys to contracts and and uh and go in that world as long as we want to stay in this so-called professional model Recruiting what I I I'm telling you and it's funny you say that because that was my thought my wife's a Collegiate basketball coach and we talk about this stuff she's nowhere at that but she's coached at every level she's now at at the the the junior college you know two-year program and they're giving scholarships now so we're talking about that as we're going along with as she's recruiting she's been she's been at the cleats level now 20 22 23 years and we haven't seen it as as jam-packed as we are now with all these different nuances but you're 100 right it's funny about when you go off the recruit and I I again I know you 40 years so I know how you are when it comes to open dialogue and I've always respected that if you tell somebody something that's what it is I think nowadays it's unfortunate that like you said some of these recruits it's hard to tell them look you're not going to play until you're a sophomore or a junior because I got two guys or three guys ahead of you you're gonna have to come here and bust your home to get that opportunity they don't want to hear that if they come in there and and maybe two slices of cheese is not on their cheeseburger they're out so for you how difficult is that when you go out to recruit and you sit in these parents in their parents home to tell this young person look here's what it is how hard is that for you now than what it was let's say 10 years ago that's a good question you know I think the most thing and this is what other parents have told me like even this past few weekends we've had recruits on campus you know they say you know one thing we feel coach when we're visiting with you and the staff is that you're authentic you're real and I said well that I said you know what that's the easiest way the only way to be I coached my son you know for a few years and and they finished up in Monroe and I asked him I said Brett I said what's the most important thing from a player standpoint you want from your coach he said two things Dad don't waste our time and always tell us the truth well that's the easiest way to do things and so much BS is going on now kids are talking to agents coaches are misleading them and we tell other guys like in recruiting like you're saying about playing time I said I'm never going to guarantee a guy that you'll start as soon as you come because that's not fair to you or the guys on a team but I don't recruit guys to be backups either if I'm recruiting you it's because we think you can play and if you're good enough to win with that's the key if you're good enough to win with you will play because I don't want talented guys standing next to me on the sidelines because we didn't teach him right so uh we tell our guys everybody gets the opportunity but we're not going to guarantee anybody that you'll start from day one and unfortunately sometimes not the player it could be a family member or a Handler or agent saying you got to go and you got to start there if not you're going to leave well if that's the guy they say that to me I ain't recruiting them because he'll be a pain in the butt this whole time you know let's go get the guy that's going to fit our culture and and there's guys out so I'm convinced that you know players will adapt to their environment you know if they know that hey I've got to work and earn success I can't get not given success I got to earn success when I go there they'll be more appreciative when they get there and it's that environment and that's the thing that that I I I'll tell my staff every day and and that don't you know that when you do that then the players want to be in the best guys on your staff to recruit and that's what I do we turn our guys over to our players and we say I'll tell them exactly like it is and they do a great job and they appreciate that and your locker room is better because of that absolutely but Culture goes back to what you said that culture is so important you know had I had that you know unfortunately I left Pitt due to my sister passing and I didn't like the way the staff handled her death and that was tough that was tough to swallow for me and my family so had that maybe it had that been handled a little bit differently who knows what would have happened but when I met coach Neal and like you said it was straight down the middle here's what it is here's the opportunity now it's up to you to seize that opportunity you can respect that that's right that's what people say a lot of times like you know there's this guy's a player's coach I'm like what is that I'm hired to be I'm I'm a player's coach I coach the players our players play coaches coach administrators administrate whatever that's what we do and and I tell our guys I said I want to have a great relationship with you and I have I've been blessed I have a great relationship with with all the former players the guys and and they still talk to me this day but it's because of how you because you're honest with them you know you you and you help them create value for themselves see that's the one you know you know on the same thing at Pro level buddies of mine are coaching the pros or play in the pros they'll say you know the number one thing that a pro player wants from their coach is to help them create value for themselves and have a longer career and a more extensive career where they can have a great living that's that's part of a coach's job is every day to help our players create value for themselves and that's the players when they come here I said listen you're you're obviously a valuable person you're a division one athlete whatever you're gonna you know makes it but we want to help you become the best best person you can be the best football player you can be and in three or four or five years you're going to be better off from having been here than go somewhere else because of the value that that we'll give to you and and to me if you keep that as your focused not to have to worry about you know and I don't tell coaches like I I you know you know man I'll yell a little bit that's why I tell coaches to coach your personality but make sure the results are that that you've you've gotten the the player uh the the best value you could get you're having success and you have the right culture within and coaches want to be in that environment too wow wow I got about a minute left coach Advice for Student Athletes I want to ask you a quick question about a minute left so give an advice to a young student athlete trying to find a place what would your advice be to a student athlete trying to find a home well first off everybody can make highlight films now because it's easy they do it on computer Twitter or whatever the case may be but also try to find a place a school and a staff that you know that you can thrive in don't look for the flash you know there's some you know out there that look like fancy cars that's not what you're going to get look for the school whether you know that can help you grow get value for yourself have success obviously winning is important but also it has a type of environment both on and off the field that you can flourish in and that should be a big part of your decision wow coach I appreciate you man I really do man I I wanna I gotta I gotta somehow get down there to check out one of these games they do we got we we have uh five midweek games in the month of October kind of like the Mac does in November we're doing it in the month of October so we'll be like our own reality show so you'll see us uh else on a channel on a big Channel some uh somewhere soon uh in in the month of October and then we have a couple other national televised games so check us out I will and I may have a half a year of Eligibility I can still got my big pads I I think you got baby two plays but I'll still take those two plays from you because you'll run hard as hell I know that I appreciate you coach thank you so much for taking the time thank you appreciate it great catching up with you always [Music] thank you [Music] thank you