Everything WVU Football Head Coach Rich Rodriguez Said at Big 12 Media Day

West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez just wrapped up on the big stage at Big 12 media days. He discussed his thoughts on this year's team, returning to WVU, and much more.

Here's everything the head ball coach had to say.

Major differences in roster building between WVU and Jacksonville State

“I’m sure I’m not the first coach to mention how transactional the rosters are and what’s going on in college athletics right now. I think your first year, you’re probably going to have a little bit more roster turnover with a new staff and all that. It was kind of more than we expected, but at the same time, I don’t think we panicked. The biggest thing is if you’re going to bring a bunch of guys in, you evaluate the right way, and it doesn’t change the culture or the environment that you’ve got to have. That’s the one thing we were adamant on, whether you bring in 70 new guys like this year or 25 next year, 30 next year, the culture and the environment has to stay with the way we want to do it. I’m hoping we don’t have to do that every year. Last year at Jax State, we had a little over 60, and it took us longer than we should have to kind of get cranked up, but once it did, we wound up being pretty good. We’re hoping the same thing happens (here).

Being in the same conference as Arizona and reflecting on his time in Tucson

“After a couple of weeks on the job, I started looking around at the league, and I’m like golly, I know the programs, at least half the programs in our league from the PAC 12 days with Utah, Colorado, the Arizona schools, played BYU a couple times. There’s some familiarity with that, but this day and age, with college athletics, everything is a little bit different now. I loved our time in Arizona. It seems like for myself and some of my staff, we’ve been on this journey for 15-20 years, and as fate would have it, we’re back in Morgantown. I know Arizona is not on the schedule this year, but they will be in the next couple years, and I know that will be an emotional time as well. I enjoyed our time there, but we’re back home at West Virginia, so I’m pretty excited about that.”

Advantages and difficulties of returning back to WVU

“This is my seventh, eighth, or ninth head coaching spot, and typically, it’ll take you six to nine months to get a lay of the land. Not just your roster, but the town, the school, and the community, and all that kind of stuff. Well, West Virginia, it took six to nine minutes. Coming back home, I know where all the bodies are buried and the traps are laid and understand the environment, so to speak. That made it an easier transition. But then again, there’s also times where there’s change - we’re in a new league, the game of college athletics has changed a little bit. It was kind of pleasing, I hadn’t been back in 17 years, and I got a tour of our football facility, and I was blown away - $50 million dollars of improvements in the last five or six years, which is really neat. A lot of the stuff that you wanted to have as a program, we were able to have coming back the second time. I guess the challenges are that it’s different now, but at the same time, it’s not. In West Virginia, football is important, athletics is important, WVU is important because we’re a smaller state and there’s no other Power Four team, there’s no pro organizations. It’s a big deal to a lot of people, and I take a lot of responsibility for that. I’ve played there, I’ve coached there, I grew up there. I’m blessed. I’m fortunate. It doesn’t happen very often where you get a chance to come full circle and come back.”

If the rev share helps put guardrails on things in CFB

“Yeah, a lot better guardrails than a month ago. I mean, it was a cluster for the last three or four years. All coaches were complaining about it. But it was, it was just a mess. And nobody knew how to really solve it right away. It’s a lot better now with the cap and the rev share, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. Until we get some congressional or some help from D.C. and get more guardrails on the deal, it’s still going to be a little bit of a cluster, but a heck of a lot better than it was a month ago. College football and college athletics is such a great entity. It’s kind of hard to screw it up. We did everything we could in the last four or five years it looks like to try to do it, but you can’t really screw it up too much because of the passion of college athletics, especially college football. I said this earlier today, I think they need to get the college athletic directors more input and more say so in how college athletics is going to be run because these are the guys and ladies that know what’s best for the schools and what’s best for the country as far as college athletics.”

How has his perspective changed in the last 20 years

“I’m a smarter and better coach than I was a week ago, let alone 20 years ago. If I’m not, then I’m not doing my program, my players, or my coaches a service. I’ve got to be smarter a week from now. We’re doing some of the same stuff philosophically from 20 years ago, but also, I had to grow. I had to grow as a coach and have asked my staff to grow that have been with me over the years. I think whether you learn from everything, whether it’s good or bad, if you learn from everything, you’ve got a chance to win. I say this all the time: Every decision I make now is about does it helps us win? If I got to do something myself, better than a week ago or a year ago, and it’s going to help us win, I’ve got to follow that.”

The talent of quarterbacks in the Big 12 and how WVU’s QB room measures up

“There is a lot of good quarterbacks. Hell, that ain’t pleasing to me. I wish there was no quarterbacks returning. I think it’s the best collection of returning quarterbacks in the country by conference. But I like our quarterback room. There’s a lot of positions (where) I have some unknowns, and there’s a little bit of unknown in our quarterback room, but there’s four or five guys that we feel have the talent to have success in our room. It’s going to be an interesting competition. We have a couple of guys that have played some football, and I’m really excited about them. We have a couple young guys that got great futures.”

Why he keeps coaching despite so many changes to CFB

“Hell, it’s a lot easier than working in the coal mines or digging a ditch. You get frustrated because you could do everything right in recruiting and developing a relationship, and all that kind of stuff, and then the guy just gets bought. That’s just the way it is. It’s transactional. That can be frustrating if you don’t have the same resources, but now I think with the rev share and some of the other stuff, it’s going to be a little bit closer and a little bit better. I’ve always loved coaching. I started off at the Division II level. You’re not taking a job for money or fame or anything like that. You’re taking a job because you love coaching. You love being around athletics. I still love it. That’s why I still call plays, I still get in the middle of everything we do on offense and defense and special teams - because I love the game and I also love coaching guys and seeing guys go from what level they’re at right now to another level.”