West Virginia Mountaineers football coach Rich Rodriguez’s return to Morgantown is going nothing like many around the program were hoping it would. WVU is 2-5 following a 45-13 blowout loss to the UCF Knights on Saturday, and things probably aren’t getting better over the final five games.
The Mountaineers alternate home and away games to close out their schedule, playing the TCU Horned Frogs next at home, the Houston Cougars at TDECU Stadium, the Colorado Buffaloes, the Arizona State Sun Devils in Tempe, and ending the season with the conference’s top dog, the Texas Tech Raiders.
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wolken believes the second honeymoon is over for Rodriguez and the Mountaineers, warning that West Virginia may well be headed for a 2-10 finish, given their remaining slate.
“...it’s safe to say the second honeymoon is over because West Virginia is headed for its worst season since 2001 — which happened to be Rodriguez’s first season after taking over from Don Nehlen. The good news is things got better quickly and Rodriguez went on to win four Big East titles, including three straight 11-win seasons to end his tenure. But this is a different era, and it’s hard to find much hope in losing 45-13 to UCF. West Virginia will be a significant underdog in its final five games and is in danger of going 2-10 (including, oddly enough, a win over a pretty decent Pitt team). Sure, West Virginia has major quarterback issues and started freshman Scotty Fox against UCF, but even Rodriguez admitted they “stunk in every phase” and didn’t do anything well in Orlando,” Wolken wrote.
Rodriguez never promised success right away. In fact, he told The Sporting News’s Bill Bender before the season that this would be the hardest year to navigate because of all the new faces.
“The first year is the hardest, because I'm still figuring out what we got. I've evaluated the Big 12 a little bit, but hell, I'm so busy evaluating my own – I don't know what I've got yet. That's the truth. I better know what I have in about two weeks,” Bender wrote.
Expectations weren’t high, but they were certainly higher than every Power 4 loss being by double digits. And beating the MAC’s Ohio Bobcats was expected to be a formality, not a non-reality.
Rodriguez isn’t on the hot seat yet, but he’s got a one-way ticket there if West Virginia can’t quickly figure things out on both sides of the ball.