Rich Rodriguez Believes Multi-Year Player Contracts Are Key to Building WVU Football

Things just aren't the same in college athletics anymore.

Long gone are the days of signing a recruit from high school and knowing you have four, possibly five years with him in your plans. There was never a rush to get someone on the field because they didn't have anywhere to go. If they wanted to transfer, they'd have to sit out a year, ultimately delaying their path to the next level.

Who would have thought 10 years ago that we would be talking about player contracts? Certainly not me, yet here we are.

When WVU head football coach Rich Rodriguez met with the media last week, he landed on the subject of player contracts and mentioned that he and his staff are aiming to secure more multi-year deals.

West Virginia University head coach Rich Rodriguez | Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

“We’re trying to get more guys up to multi-year deals because the retention part is the first thing you do after every season. You’re always going to lose a couple, and we lost a couple we didn’t want to lose, but we were able to retain a lot of guys, too. Again, a lot of times that takes money, but it also takes guys that want to be here and be in the culture, be in that locker room, and be the ones that take this program where we think it should be. We got a lot of them on one-year (contracts). We’re trying to get more on two-year. I wouldn’t mind getting some guys on three-year contracts. All of that is an ongoing process.”

Basically, what Rodriguez is trying to accomplish is to limit the number of "free agents" the team will have each offseason. By getting more players locked up for the 2027 season and beyond, they have a better idea of what areas to pursue in the transfer portal and will be able to spend more time evaluating that class of free agents instead of doing that while also trying to re-recruit their own players.

There's just one problem...

Contracts don't guarantee anything. If a player wants to leave before that contract expires, he'll leave, as we saw with Duke QB Darian Mensah earlier this offseason. He was on a multi-year deal and yet still found his way to Miami.

In one way or another, buyouts are going to be included in these contracts. It's the only way to protect yourself from being completely screwed over. In most cases, the school that ends up landing the player who was under contract will fund the buyout.

Even in this new era of college sports, where it feels transactional, relationships matter. The stronger the bond a player has with the staff, the more likely it is he'll stay put and make the money work.