Pat McAfee on Rich Rod: "We Knew it Wasn't Going to Work at Michigan"
To this very day, there is still a portion of the WVU fanbase that has an unreal amount of hatred and disgust toward former West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez.
During his seven years strolling the sidelines in Morgantown, we saw some of the best football that had ever been played at West Virginia University. He had a 60-26 record, including a program changing win over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. That game really put West Virginia back on the map and was a pretense as to what was to come.
In 2007, West Virginia began the season ranked 3rd in the AP Top 25, with many feeling as if it were a national championship or bust. The Mountaineers had the best backfield in the country with running back Steve Slaton, fullback Owen Schmitt, and dynamic dual-threat quarterback Pat White.
Unfortunately, West Virginia fell 13-9 to a really bad Pitt team on the final game of the year that would have sent the Mountaineers to the BCS national championship. Prior to the Fiesta Bowl vs. Oklahoma, head coach Rich Rodriguez dipped out of Morgantown and became head coach at the University of Michigan. He went 15-22 in three years in Ann Arbor before being fired.
Former West Virginia punter, Pat McAfee, mentioned on his Wednesday show how he and a few others knew Michigan would not be a good place for Rodriguez before he even coached a game.
"We won a lot of games with Rich Rodriguez. He is a guy who changed college football and never gets credit for it. Whenever he ended up at Michigan, we knew it wasn't going to work at Michigan. There was no way it was going to work at Michigan just because we had been to practice with him, workouts with him, and meetings with him, and we were kids that didn't have other scholarships sitting in a deck. Michigan kids all got options. Whenever Rich went up there, we knew it probably wasn't the same type of grit in that locker room or guys that were like 'oh I'm not going to do this, I'm going to go somewhere else,' and that happened."
Rodriguez told McAfee that he only knows one way to coach and that for some people, he may not be the kind of coach they're looking for. Several top college football coaches always attract NFL teams, whether it be their innovative ways or just their overall success. Rodriguez never made the leap to the NFL, but McAfee thinks he would have found success in the right situation and not necessarily as a head coach.
"I think that's what happens with a lot of these college coaches," McAfee said. "They say, 'hey, I am successful in this way of coaching, this is how I do it, and in the NFL, that's not always going to translate. Although I do believe an NFL locker room, if they were winning, would enjoy the s*** out of Rich Rodriguez."
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