Rich Rodriguez Announces Hiring of Larry Knight as Edges/Pass Rush Specialist

West Virginia University head football coach Rich Rodriguez announced that Larry Knight has been hired as the Mountaineers’ edges and pass rush specialist, bringing more than a decade of collegiate coaching experience to the defensive staff.

“Larry has done an outstanding job of building defensive lines and developing pass rushers who can bring pressure off the edge,” Rodriguez said. “His ability as a lead recruiter at several of his stops brings our program another experienced recruiter. I want to welcome him and his wife, Marquita, to the WVU Football Family.”

Knight joins West Virginia after spending the 2025 season at Arkansas State, where he served as defensive ends coach and defensive run game coordinator under head coach Butch Jones. He helped guide the Red Wolves to seven wins and a second-place finish in the Sun Belt Conference’s Western Division.

Arkansas State’s defensive front thrived under Knight’s direction, registering 39 sacks—tied for first in the Sun Belt Conference and tied for sixth nationally with an average of 3.00 sacks per game. The Red Wolves recorded a season-high nine sacks against Troy, matching the top single-game total in the nation. Three of the league’s top seven sack leaders came from Arkansas State, and all four starting defensive linemen earned All-Sun Belt honors. The unit finished fourth in the conference in tackles for loss and scoring defense, improving eight spots from the previous season and ranking No. 30 nationally in tackles for loss.

Knight spent the 2023 and 2024 seasons at Temple, where he coached the defensive ends. During that time, he helped develop All-American Athletic Conference standout Diwun Black, who totaled three sacks, six tackles for loss and eight quarterback hurries.

From 2019 to 2022, Knight served as defensive line coach and defensive recruiting coordinator at Georgia Tech. While with the Yellow Jackets, he helped secure the second-highest recruiting class in program history in 2020 and landed the school’s highest-rated defensive line recruiting class in 2021. His tenure included the development of multiple All-ACC performers, including Djimon Brooks, who rose from an unrecruited walk-on to an All-ACC starter in 2021.

Knight also recruited and developed Keion White, a 2022 All-ACC honoree who tied for third in the conference in sacks and tackles for loss before being selected in the second round of the 2023 NFL Draft by the New England Patriots. Additional standouts included All-ACC defensive lineman Zeek Biggers and All-American Kyle Kennard. Georgia Tech’s defensive front ranked among the nation’s top 25 teams in fumble recoveries in both the 2021 and 2022 seasons.

Knight’s earlier career includes a previous stint at Temple from 2017 to 2019, where he began as a defensive and recruiting quality control assistant before being promoted to director of player personnel. He was later elevated to outside linebackers coach and defensive recruiting coordinator. During that stretch, the Owls reached back-to-back bowl games, including a victory in the 2017 Gasparilla Bowl, and fielded a 2018 defense that ranked among the nation’s top four in defensive touchdowns.

He also served as the outside linebackers coach at Georgia State from 2015 to 2016, helping engineer the most improved defense in the FBS in 2015 by reducing scoring defense by 15

points per game. That season marked Georgia State’s first bowl appearance, earning a berth in the Cure Bowl.

Knight gained Power Four experience earlier in his career at Tennessee from 2013 to 2014 as a defensive graduate assistant and defensive quality control coach, supporting back-to-back top-five recruiting classes and assisting in the development of future first-round NFL Draft pick Derek Barnett. He also worked as a defensive line intern with the Atlanta Falcons in 2015 and participated in the Bill Walsh Minority Coaching Fellowship with the Green Bay Packers during the spring of 2025.

Knight began his collegiate coaching career at Cincinnati from 2011 to 2012 as a graduate assistant. During the 2011 season, the Bearcats’ defensive line led the nation in tackles for loss (8.6 per game) and sacks (3.5 per game), helping Cincinnati win two Big East championships and earn two bowl victories.

A native of Augusta, Georgia, Knight earned his bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship and marketing from Central Michigan in 2010. A four-year letterwinner at defensive end, he was a Mid-American Conference all-league performer in 2009 and helped lead the Chippewas to three conference championships.

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