MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Pop into West Virginia’s Milan Puskar Stadium during spring football, and a wave of déjà vu will roll over you.

On a brisk March morning in Morgantown, head coach Rich Rodriguez is keeping a watchful eye over the field, wearing a navy blue West Virginia hat, a navy pullover with gold stripes down the shoulders, and navy pants. Pat White, Noel Devine and Rasheed Marshall are on the field. Typical of a coach who’s also a father, Rodriguez’s kids are also at practice. The defense is wearing blue, the offense white.

It all sounds like a scene from 2007. Except today, White isn’t the team’s quarterback. Instead, he’s helping coach quarterbacks. Devine, who starred at running back for the Mountaineers, is off on the sideline close to the back corner of the end zone, helping coach running backs. Marshall — Rodriguez’s first quarterback at West Virginia — is the director of player relations, still responsible for keeping the pulse of the team at all times.

Rodriguez’s son, Rhett, isn’t a little kid wandering around the field anymore. He’s the quarterbacks coach, working alongside White. And Rodriguez’s daughter, Raquel, is taking pictures and video at practice, handling West Virginia’s creative content.

“I should probably be more grateful for that,” Rodriguez said. “It’s a definite blessing, but I don’t probably look at it that way enough because I’m still yelling at Rhett. I’m still yelling at Pat White.”

Rodriguez is an easygoing guy off the field, but there is a switch that gets flipped once he gets in between the white lines. Rodriguez is fiery and demands everyone’s best effort and focus on the field.

“I know it sounds like coachspeak, but the next play is my entire world. You know, maybe I’m sick. … But when we’re doing practice, that very next play is the most important thing in the world to me. And maybe I’m psycho for thinking that way.”

That’s the theme in the return of Rich Rodriguez to Morgantown — many things look the same, but this is a new era. And Rodriguez will continue to demand what he has always demanded from his teams: a “hard edge.”

WEST VIRGINIA HIRED Rodriguez as its head coach — for the first time — in 2001. In his six seasons at the helm, he led the Mountaineers (in 2005-07) to three top-10 finishes in the AP poll — the same number of top-10 finishes as they had in their other 106 seasons of football combined. The 2007 team was a December loss against rival Pitt away from playing for the national championship. Rodriguez established himself as the king of the spread option and led teams that weren’t just the best in school history, but some of the most exciting in the history of college football.

Rodriguez left in late 2007 after being offered the job at Michigan. Since then, West Virginia hasn’t finished a season in the AP top 15, and Rodriguez has had six different jobs in 18 years. His Michigan tenure wasn’t the success many anticipated. He led the Wolverines to a 3-9 record, the worst in school history, in 2008. And perhaps more crucially, he oversaw three consecutive blowout losses against Ohio State.

Rodriguez then spent six years as the head coach at Arizona, 2019 as Ole Miss’ offensive coordinator and 2021 as the offensive coordinator at Louisiana-Monroe.

But things began to turn around after he took the head coach job at Jacksonville State and led them to bowl games in the program’s first two seasons at the FBS level. No other program had ever managed that feat.

“It’s kind of natural to have some nostalgia about when we were here the first time, and some of the success we had probably a part in me getting back here the second time,” Rodriguez says. “But I like to think the main reason we were able to get this opportunity is because of what we did the last few years at Jack State. Because if we lost at Jack State, I would have never got called, right?”

Rodriguez was 38 years old when he first became the head coach at West Virginia, and was 44 when he left. At 61, today, he is just as fiery as he was all those years ago.

At practice, nobody is left unchecked. His walkie-talkie that is used to help communicate plays to the quarterbacks goes flying into the turf every now and then, its durability being tested and upheld despite Rodriguez’s best efforts. Players are yelled at for not running fast enough on plays or even reps. Accusations of being soft aren’t directed exclusively at the players. The coaches get them as well.

It’s the version of Rodriguez his former players remember.

“Zero has changed about Coach Rod,” White said. “He’s still as fiery as he was as a 40-year-old coach. And he may be a little upset with me for saying this, but now he’s fiery, plus he’s slightly a grumpy old man, so it makes for intensity at all times, which is good.”

Devine said, “He’s hard-edge and [makes you] earn success. Coach Rod is very intense and has high expectations of his athletes. And if you want to be your best, he’s going to get the best out of you.” He added, “It’s the same thing coaching now. Coach Rod demands our best.”

Rodriguez feels like he’s striking a balance. “I’ve had old-school coaches, where they were on you all the time and that’s all you ever saw,” he said. “They never saw the other side. I call it flipping the switch. It’s a different person out there in those lines than there is right here. It’s not purposeful, I’ve just always been that way.”

Rodriguez has always been a competitor, even when the stakes were low. He would come home inconsolable after losing basketball games in junior high. “You couldn’t talk to me for a day or two,” he said.

But he’s got a soft side, too.

“My kids and my wife will tell you the same thing. I’m sweet. They tease me when I get my puppies. I got two Pomeranian puppies, Roxie and Rambo. They’ve got my heart too, my family and my puppies.”

When his switch is on, though, the dog dad is gone. Rodriguez is obsessed with making sure everything is just right. That includes how his players carry themselves off the field. For example, Rodriguez caught headlines in March when he said his team was banned from dancing on TikTok.

​​”They’re going to be on it, so I’m not banning them from it,” he said during his media availability. “I’m just banning them from dancing on it. It’s like, look, we try to have a hard edge or whatever, and you’re in there in your tights dancing on TikTok, ain’t quite the image of our program that I want.”

Speaking of the moment later, Rodriguez said, “I don’t know. I thought it was a slow news day if they’re making a big deal, because I don’t let them dance in our stuff on TikTok. What are we taking away from them? Is it their ability to earn money? Well, I want them to earn as much money as they can by doing good in football. If they do good in football, I’m in any way I can help them legally possible to earn more money by doing good in football. I don’t want them to be worried about making money doing good dancing.”

Rodriguez feels that posting TikTok dances promotes individuality, instead of the team. In his eyes, that works against the culture he is working to put back into place. If it’s not about the team, it doesn’t fit in at his West Virginia program.

That’s partly why Marshall is here. As director of player relations, he is responsible for being a translator of sorts. He takes the temperature of the team and works to explain Rodriguez’s firm demands in a way that players might better understand.

“It’s keeping a pulse on where guys are mentally, what’s going on outside of this building, but also being able to make an impact in terms of explaining to these guys what the culture is all about, having gone through it myself,” Marshall said. “There’s going to be a time when some of these guys, they just knock on the office, and they want to know, ‘Hey, was that chew-out personal? Or was it just him trying to make me better?'”

Marshall believes that Rodriguez can be misunderstood by those that don’t know him as well, but credits his “hard edge” style for making him the player he was, and person he has become.

“From the outside, it is very easy to look at it and say, ‘OK, this is just absolutely absurd. Who wants to be a part of it?’ But it does take a special person. Looking at it externally you could easily say this is pretty hostile, and you’re not going to get anyone to buy into it. But he’ll find the people.”

That demand for accountability is the only thing that anyone in the building is trying to carry over from years past, which is one of the reasons Rodriguez has brought his former players back. He’s convinced they can immediately get respect from the current roster while conveying Rodriguez’s message to the next generation.

“You understand that when you step on the field, it’s about handling your business.” White said. “You have a job to do. And as he always says, ‘This play is the most important thing happening in your life while you’re doing it. Your mind should be on only my assignment, my alignment, my technique, and how do I whoop the guy in front of me?’ And he demands it.”

RODRIGUEZ HAS BEEN on the job for about three months, and the shelves in his office still aren’t quite full. There are multiple pictures of him and his family, and the various helmets West Virginia will wear during the season. There’s a lump of coal under a shelf behind his desk.

“You think, ‘Where would the Rodriguez name come from in small-town West Virginia?’ Well my grandfather and his brother were looking for jobs in the States, and the only thing they could find was in the coal mines of West Virginia.”

Rodriguez grew up in Grant Town, which had a population of about 1,000 people when he was born. His dad, uncles and most of his family worked in the coal mines. His grandfather died of black lung, which sets in when coal dust is inhaled. Over time, continued exposure to the coal dust causes scarring in the lungs, impairing a person’s ability to breathe.

Despite being a football coach, Rodriguez has some coal miner in him. He talks about his favorite food, pepperoni rolls, an item originally eaten for lunch by coal miners, and something he couldn’t find once he left the state. Then he looks back at the lump of coal behind him, “Whenever I start complaining, or anybody on the staff starts complaining about coaching, whatever, whatever. I mean, we need to reflect. Look at what these people did for a living.”

That’s all to say that this isn’t just any job for Rodriguez. His understanding of his team’s fan base motivates him to be demanding of himself and his football team. This is about more than football to him. Rodriguez coaches from his sense of place.

“I grew up in … a coal mining town; they had a plant right there. So yeah, this place does mean more. I went to school here. I understand the people of the state. It’s blue-collar and [has] an underdog mentality, but also a lot of pride in everything that we do. There’s no professional team in the state. There’s not another Power 4 team in the state. So a lot of people’s happiness can grow when West Virginia athletics has success. I knew that when I played here, I knew that before I played here, I knew that when I coached here, so that’s still the same.

“There’s a lot of people that buy these tickets, and that’s a big expense to them and I think we owe it to them, you know, maybe not to win, you’re going to make mistakes, whatever. But we owe it to them to at least play with great passion.”

RICH RODRIGUEZ’S LAST days at West Virginia were the low point of his career.

The Mountaineers entered the 2007 Backyard Brawl against 4-7 Pittsburgh with a 10-1 record and a No. 2 ranking in the BCS poll. A win would have sent them to the national championship game. The 2007 college football season is iconic for its upsets, and Pitt’s 13-9 shocker over West Virginia is, debatably, the crown jewel.

The loss had Rodriguez puking after he addressed his team in the locker room. “Worst night of my professional career, without question, by far.”

After the loss, he ended up taking the job at Michigan, leaving a bad taste in the mouth of West Virginia faithful. Neither West Virginia nor Rodriguez have been the same since. They were both at their best together. And now they each have a second chance.

“We were really close. I mean, we were, I think, solidly, a top-10 program, and close to playing for a national championship. But part of my frustration is I wanted to stay there. And people say it’s harder to stay at the top than get to the top. No, it’s harder to get there.”

Rodriguez’s opening news conference in December was a celebration. One fan heckled Rodriguez before being escorted out of the building, but even that turned into a moment of glory.

“OK, any other Pitt fans can leave the building,” he responded, drawing a roar from the crowd and chants of “Eat s— Pitt!”

There are many things that make this era different from Rodriguez’s last. There was no transfer portal in 2007. There was no NIL. West Virginia is now a member of an unpredictable and wide-open Big 12. Also, college football’s championship window has expanded from two teams in the BCS era to a 12-team playoff format. Win the Big 12, and you’ll have a shot at a national title.

But he’s not looking that far ahead. He just wants to talk, already, about how his 2025 team can improve.

“We want to play fast and have fast guys. We’re not fast enough right now, but when we get some time to get our fast guys playing fast, and playing with passion, then we’ll get close to the success we had back [in 2007].”

Rodriguez isn’t going to know what his final roster looks like until fall camp. For now, the most important things in his eyes are how his practices are run, their workouts, focus in meetings, and an overall commitment to the program. He’s looking to establish a culture. He believes that once that standard is set, the Mountaineers will become a well-oiled machine.

For Rodriguez’s former players, it’s not a question of whether the team will become successful again. It’s just a matter of when.

“The principles and the pillars of what he expected back then, the expectation has not changed,” Marshall said. “You’re going to play hard, he’s going to be demanding. He’s going to coach you in a particular way to where you’re going to get it done, or there’s going to be another player to step in and get it done for me.”

Devine said, “We can’t relive the past, even though we have people from the past right back here in the building. The only thing we can do is lay down the blueprint, the gold standard, blue collar work ethic, and try to instill the same thing that was instilled in us. … We can’t relive the past, but we can rebuild.”

And for a player who was as extraordinary as White was, one of his main points of emphasis has nothing to do with athleticism or skill — but belief.

“I don’t know if all the players [last year] on every given Saturday or Friday or Thursday, whenever they played, truly felt like they had a chance to win when they stepped out on the field,” he said. “I think we did, and I think they will.”

Rodriguez believes his standard will set in soon, and its impacts will be obvious to anybody who watches West Virginia play this fall. You don’t have to know X’s and O’s to see effort, he says. And effort will always be non-negotiable in his eyes. He believes the Mountaineer fan base deserves nothing less.

“It’s human nature to be average, it’s human nature to be lazy, and we have to fight that every day,” he said.

“And we — and I — will keep fighting it. I have no problems fighting it until it becomes ingrained into every person in the program.”