'This Is for Ike Morris': Rich Rodriguez Shares Heartfelt Words After WVU Victory

It has been an emotional week for West Virginia head football coach Rich Rodriguez and all of those who knew and were close to Ike Morris, who did so many great things for the state of West Virginia over the years. Morris passed away at the age of 88 earlier in the week, and it hit those who knew him extremely hard because of how great a person he was.

Rich Rod even called him the "most influential person" in his life and said that he was like a second father to him. The two met 36 years ago when Rodriguez became the head coach at Glenville State, where Morris has been a huge supporter of the university and athletics program. Morris followed Rodriguez wherever he went and remained close with him over the last three-plus decades.

During the game at TCU on Saturday, Rodriguez and the coaching staff all wore white hats that had IKE written on them, letting his family know that he was on their minds and that they would be playing for him.

In his postgame press conference, Rodriguez was asked about the difficulty of the past week and what the win meant to him following Ike's passing.

WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez talking about his first win since the passing of Ike Morris earlier this week. pic.twitter.com/EW38iB3AXp
— Patrick (@PatReneauSports) October 24, 2026

“This is for Ike Morris. We’ve talked about it. There’s no greater West Virginian than Ike Morris," Rodriguez said. "We were able to go down and see Sue, Doug, and Shelly for a long time on Thursday, and there’s nobody more happy right now than Ike is up in heaven. Typically, about right now, I’d be calling him. I ain’t got to; he’s already seen it. I ain’t got to call him; he already saw it.”

You could tell how much this one meant to Rodriguez the second Ben Cutter hopped on top of that Jaden Craig fumble. You could see the emotion and hear it in his voice when doing the on-field postgame interview with ESPN2, and there in his presser. Ike Morris had such a big heart and always did things for people without wanting the recognition for it. On Saturday, he was honored the right way and was treated to a Mountaineer victory.

West Virginia will head into the bye week on a two-game winning streak, holding a 5-3 (2-3) record. They will take on Texas Tech in Lubbock on November 7th.

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