West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez used his Big 12 Media Day appearance to lay out exactly what this version of the Mountaineers is supposed to be: older, deeper, more competitive, and built around players who have already done it somewhere else.
Rodriguez said the roster has been turned over again, with “Eighty new guys again this year.” That churn, he explained, came after a season that left the program with a heavy senior presence. This time around, West Virginia had more resources and more time to target the portal, and Rodriguez said the staff was more deliberate about finding players with real production instead of upside alone.
“We wanted to get competition at every position and legitimate competition. And we wanted guys that had production, not potential.”
That approach showed up at quarterback, where Rodriguez pointed to Scotty and Mike Hawkins as the two players he’s excited to see lead the offense. Scotty returned after playing as “a really young true freshman last year,” while Hawkins arrived as the transfer the staff believed could push for the starting job. Rodriguez said Hawkins had “a great spring” and praised both quarterbacks for their decisiveness.
The same philosophy carried through the rest of the roster. Rodriguez said the returning players have helped reset the culture, and he believes the team is better across the board. He also made clear that the staff leaned heavily on players who had already produced in college games, including at Group of Five schools, rather than betting on raw talent alone.
Rodriguez also spent time on the bigger picture of how college football works now. He said the sport keeps changing and that experience only matters if a coach keeps learning from it. In his view, the modern game is as much about managing money and making smart personnel decisions as it is about scheme.
“You got to be able to manage the money, and you got to pay the right guys.”
He said West Virginia is in a better place this year because it has “a full rev share now,” more time to evaluate portal options, and more players who arrived with starting experience. Last year, he noted, the Mountaineers did not have any offensive linemen who had started games. This year, he said, the program has more competition and more players ready to step in.
Rodriguez was also direct about the alignment he believes exists inside the program. He said winning in college athletics requires everyone moving in the same direction, from the top of the department down through the fan base. At West Virginia, he said, that alignment is there, and he believes the team will be much better - possibly better than outside expectations - though he stressed that the group still has to prove it.
One of the more personal parts of his comments came when Rodriguez talked about “Country Roads.” What began as a postgame song in 2002 has become something much bigger, he said, especially after the baseball team’s run and the song’s spread to other stages, including World Cup teams playing it.
“It’s become viral, has it not?”
Rodriguez said the song carries real meaning for people connected to the state, and he took pride in West Virginia’s identity as a small state with a Power Four program and no NBA or NFL team. He said he wants his players - who come from “20-some states, three different countries” - to understand what that connection means when they arrive in Morgantown.
He also singled out Nick, calling him last year’s most productive and best offensive lineman. Rodriguez said the staff moved Nick from tackle to guard after Coach Rick Trickett believed guard was his natural spot, and he said the switch went well in spring. Rodriguez described Nick as a leader by example rather than by volume, and said he expects him to be one of the best linemen in the league and an all-conference type player.
On the other side of the ball - or at least in the run game - Rodriguez explained why the program went after Kayden, a true fullback type. He said the position had largely disappeared from college football, but because West Virginia wants to run the ball, the staff saw a role for a player who could fit that old-school mold and handle blocking duties.
Finally, Rodriguez addressed the running back room, which he said had to be rebuilt from scratch with no returning players. The answer was Cam, who he identified as the leading rusher in the country, a player who had already operated in a similar system at Jax State last year and had Big 12 experience before that. Rodriguez called him a complete back, praising his running ability, pass protection, and ball skills, and said he had an outstanding spring.
In Other News...
Kalani Sitake Shows Why WVU Country Roads Means So Much
Three years ago, Kalani Sitake found himself in the middle of one of the more memorable West Virginia traditions without fully understanding the fine print. The BYU coach had talked up hearing fans sing Take Me Home, Country Roads at a game, only to later realize that at WVU, the song is reserved for after a win. It was the kind of harmless misstep that sticks because it says so much about how deeply that anthem is tied to Mountaineer football and the atmosphere around it.
Sitake revisited the moment during Big 12 Media Day and handled it with the sort of perspective that tends to play well in league circles. He acknowledged the mistake and made clear he respects what the song means in Morgantown, which is part of why the exchange has lingered beyond the original game. BYU and WVU are not on each others schedule this season, but the next trip to Morgantown is already on the horizon. [Read more 🡒]
WVU Fans Wont Believe What Big 12 Branding Means For Mountaineer Uniforms
The Big 12s new partnership with Monster Energy is about to show up in a very visible way across the league, with the brands patches set to land on football and mens and womens basketball uniforms while logos also appear on fields and courts. The agreement is reportedly worth $20 million and is expected to send about $1 million annually to each conference member, another sign of how aggressively the league is leaning into sponsorship revenue.
For West Virginia, the branding move also opens the door to more local creativity. Athletic director Wren Baker has already mentioned the possibility of pursuing an additional jersey patch sponsorship, and the Mountaineers are actively looking for more revenue streams as college athletics keeps pushing deeper into the commercial space. What that could look like for WVU uniforms is still taking shape, but the conversation is clearly moving beyond conference-wide branding and into school-specific add-ons. [Read more 🡒]
Big 12 Commissioner Just Sent WVU Fans A Powerful Message
West Virginia has spent the spring and summer giving the Big 12 plenty to notice. The womens basketball team won the conference tournament, the baseball program reached the College World Series, and those milestones have only added to the sense that the Mountaineers are building something that travels well beyond a single season. That backdrop made Brett Yormarks comments at media days stand out, because the commissioner was not just acknowledging results. He was signaling that WVUs brand, investment and overall direction are being noticed at the highest level of the league.
For Mountaineer fans, the encouraging part is that the praise went beyond polite conference talk. Yormark pointed to the schools competitive potential and the way its fan base shows up, which matters in a league that values both performance and energy. There is also a broader layer here: West Virginia seems to fit the Big 12s culture in a way that could matter again if the conference landscape shifts, and the optimism around what Wren Baker is building only adds to that picture. [Read more 🡒]