Everything Rich Rodriguez Said About the WVU Football 2025 Signing Class

On Wednesday, the West Virginia Mountaineers signed over 40 players from the high school and junior college ranks and pulled off a couple of surprises, flipping the commitments of Matt Sieg and Amari Latimer.

He met with the media yesterday evening to discuss his thoughts on the class and what's next.

What the needs were and what they are now

“It was every position. Obviously, had a bad year and disappointed with a lot of stuff that went on, but not discouraged. There were some things that were positive, and I feel very confident that we can fix our problems. And you start fixing problems with personnel. We had a bunch of seniors, and they played hard, but last year we were a little late on the high school/junior college cycle, so to fill our roster, we went portal-heavy and brought some guys in. We had more one-year guys than I would ever want to have, but now, having been here a year, you don’t have to do as much. You still can, and we still will, but not to the extent as we did last year. It starts up front, and again, there’s going to be a handful of portal guys that we’re going to go after in January because we need some grown men in certain spots. But I think we got a couple high potential, future all-conference guys that we signed on the o-line. We signed a couple of athletic quarterbacks. We needed a bunch of wideouts and guys that can run, we got that. Got a couple of tight ends, still going to need a couple more tight ends. We addressed a little bit of d-line. We’ve got more of that that’s going to come. We’ve got a bunch of linebackers that we signed.”

Building through the high school ranks

“The idea would be if you had a choice to get the same guy player-wise that’s got one year left or four years left, you’re going to take the guy that’s got four years left because he’ll grow in your program. Now, if the guy that’s got one year left or two years left and is a whole lot better player or is more ready to go right now than the other guy, then you’ve got to take that guy. The ideal thing would be to get 2:1 or 3:1 freshman or JC guys compared to the one-year or two-year guys. It’s probably a lesser cost to get the high school guy because they’re unproven at the college level. The portal guys seem to be more expensive, and you’ve got to pay more to get the true experienced, plug-and-play guy out of the portal.”

Taking guys who can help now vs. later

“I tell every guy, I don’t guarantee a guy that hey, as soon as you come on campus, you’re starting, because that wouldn’t be fair to you or to the guys on the team. Yet we don’t recruit anybody to be backups. How would we get better if we recruited a guy and say, Well, you’re probably going to be a backup, developmental guy and play in a year or two. I tell our coaches, recruit guys you think are as good or better than what we got, and you don’t know for sure until you get them, but you better have a decent idea of it. That competitiveness is what we’ve lacked a little bit here. I want a competitive environment every day. The best way to compete and the best way to have that true, competitive environment is have a bunch of players who are pretty good, competing to be the starter. We didn’t have enough of that this year, but some of the reasons we didn’t have that this year is because guys got hurt. When three other guys in front of you get hurt, and there’s only you and one other guy to play at that position, it ain’t real competitive.”

Signing OL Kevin Brown

“No brainer. He was committed to Penn State, and we said, Well, let’s just have him come down to camp and he did. And then guys like him a lot of times don’t want to work out. Well, Kevin was just the opposite. I mean, he was doing every drill and all that, and it hurt my feelings even more after watching him work out because I mean, this dude, he was a monster, right? All I did was, like, we’ve got to get him somehow because you saw him at camp and he was everything you thought he would be. At least he came here, and I was just like, let’s keep plugging away and plugging away. And then when they had their change-up there (at Penn State), it gave us a little bit of a crack. When he came down for his visit, it was a great visit. Not a good visit, a great visit. It was good to see his dad (Tim) and his family. He’s everything you want in a football player.”

Signing ATH Matt Sieg

“Matt was the same way. I think he was solidly committed to Penn State, and every time we would talk to people in Western Pennsylvania, they were like this guy is the talk of the whole state. Everybody in Western Pennsylvania knew him, and you watch him play and he’s dynamic. He can play a bunch of positions, and we weren’t sure we were in it. We tried to be. And then, there was a little bit of a crack with what happened up there (at Penn State), and we got a chance to stay in it, and I think he probably saw there’s a great opportunity for him at safety. And I told him, I think you’re good enough to play that, but also help us on the other side of the ball as well. We made a hard, late run at it. He’s going to be a whole lot of fun for our fans to watch.”

Recruiting players who can play two ways

“We’ve signed multiple guys that have a chance, I think, to play both ways. The roster size is going to be limited going forward, so you’re going to have to have guys that can play both ways. Curtis (Jones) did a little bit this year out of necessity. But even like a guy like Noah Tishendorf…we signed him as an outside backer/d-end kind of guy. He’ll be a fullback and a tight end for us, too. He can do that; he’s a tough guy. And there are several of our guys that are athletes that might play running back, slot receiver, outside, they may do a little bit of defense, so we signed some guys with that in mind. We have a couple more we’re still looking at. We signed two in-state guys, like Malachi Thompson, who’s 6’4”, out of Nitro, great ball skills. And then Xavier Anderson and we thought Xavier was one of the best athletes in the state. He’s a guy that can play tight end and wide out for us, but he’s also a really, really good pass rusher.”

If being a dual-threat is a non-negotiable

“Not really. I mean, if a guy is an exceptional thrower and he’s going to complete 80% of his passes and he’s got just enough awareness to get out of a sack once in a while, that’s fine. But if a guy can be a true dual-threat, that’s even better. The guys we signed all can run, but they all can throw as well. They’re good throwers, but they’re elite runners.”

Talks with current players in exit meetings

“We like to be brutally honest with our guys because we don’t like to string ‘em a long and then two weeks from now, I’ll say you got a spot here. We’re going to tell them you have a spot here, or you don’t have a spot here. And then, there are a handful of guys that are frankly going to be called to task a little bit and say you need to show us in the next month or two months that you’re right for our program, or you’re going to have to find a spot. If everybody’s not disciplined and focused and doing the right things the right way and all that, then I ain’t going to mess with them. They’ll have to go somewhere else. We don’t have a lot of those problems, but there are a few guys that are going to be up against it. They have the ability to make it right and have a great career here, but they also could mess up, and then they’ll have to do their career somewhere else.”