WVU Football Coach Rich Rodriguez Goes Off On How Soft College Athletes Are Now: “They Live In A Fantasy World”

An old-school coach. I grew up in West Virginia watching Rich Rodriguez and his WVU Mountaineers, back when guys like Pat White, Steve Slaton and Owen Schmitt had the team on the brink of a national championship thanks to their hard-nosed football. (I mean, if seeing Schmitt on the sidelines bashing his own head in with his helmet doesn’t get you fired up, you need to check your pulse). Rodriguez upset a lot of WVU fans when he left his […] The post WVU Football Coach Rich Rodriguez Goes Off On How Soft College Athletes Are Now: “They Live In A Fantasy World” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

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WVU Football Coach Rich Rodriguez Goes Off On How Soft College Athletes Are Now: “They Live In A Fantasy World”

An old-school coach.

I grew up in West Virginia watching Rich Rodriguez and his WVU Mountaineers, back when guys like Pat White, Steve Slaton and Owen Schmitt had the team on the brink of a national championship thanks to their hard-nosed football. (I mean, if seeing Schmitt on the sidelines bashing his own head in with his helmet doesn’t get you fired up, you need to check your pulse).

Rodriguez upset a lot of WVU fans when he left his home state to coach at Michigan following the 2007 football season. WVU football has had good seasons since Coach Rod left, but nothing like the success they had during his tenure.

That’s why when coach Neal Brown was fired at the end of last season, Mountaineer fans were divided on bringing Rich Rod back. Some thought he was the only guy who could bring back that hard-edged style that would give them a chance to compete for a championship, while others still had a hard time forgiving him for the way he left after the devastating loss to Pittsburgh in the Backyard Brawl back in 2007.

But now that he’s back home, Rich Rod is working hard on bringing about a culture shift to the WVU locker room, making clear that he had no place on his team for guys who weren’t going to work hard and give them an edge on the field.

Earlier this year, Rodriguez made headlines when it was revealed that he had banned his players from dancing on TikTok:

“They’re going to be on it, so I’m not banning them from it. 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. It ain’t quite the image of our program that I want.”

Obviously TikTok wasn’t around during his last stint at WVU, so it wasn’t really something he had to worry about. But that’s not the only thing that’s changed since his last time in the blue and gold. There’s NIL money involved now, and many college players who make more than the coaches.

But another thing Rodriguez says he’s had to overcome is how “soft” college athletes have become.

During a press conference yesterday, Rich Rod went on an epic about the toughness that’s missing from college athletes, and society in general, these days:

“I think generally, we’re softer as a society. We’re softer as athletes. I don’t really necessarily blame anybody because everything they’re going around is like, ‘How do we make it easier for them?’

Everyone can make it easy instead of making things harder for them so they learn how to go through hard times. So that’s what hard edge is.

Hard edge, it’s not a magical word you’re going to wake up and have it… I think that’s part of my responsibility, to teach our guys, and they got a long successful life ahead of them but not all is going to be strawberries and sunshine and roses and flowers.”

Rodriguez says he told his team about his father working as a coal miner, spending all day underground and then coming home to work outside in their garden:

“I told them, ‘Hey, my dad was a coal miner.’ He worked in a coal mine. Had one week off a year I think. Work all day in the coal mines and come home, you got stuff all over you and then go work in the garden for four hours.

And as I got older as a kid, I was a little kid, we worked in a garden a little bit. And the older I got, the more of a garden we did. And the bigger the garden got. The older I got, the bigger the garden. I hated pulling weeds. I mean, I’d rather do anything than pull weeds. You ever pull weeds in a garden around the beans? It’s miserable, absolutely miserable.

I mean, I would play every sport. I don’t care. I mean, we didn’t even have lacrosse. I’d lie and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to go play lacrosse or something.’ But I played every sport. It wasn’t to get out of the garden, but that was a side benefit…”

He then pointed out how much college athletes have available to them these days, having their hand held every step of the way:

“The people in this state, how they work, I mean, you’ve seen people, whether coal miners or anybody. I mean, it’s not always easy. Our guys got it pretty good… I mean, y’all been through this building? Have you seen how we eat? You seen all the services we have? They got it pretty good.

They live in a fantasy world. I don’t mind telling you, do they not? We live, coaches too, because we get these benefits. We live in a fantasy world. We want for nothing. You want food, you want medical help, you want job help, you want financial help?

I mean, we got cold tubs, hot tubs. We even got an ice cream machine. We just got it yesterday. You know, maybe two days before we get it all cranked up. But damn, this stuff, I mean, it’s top level stuff, man. An ice cream machine, free. And probably even have the sprinkles to put on it.”

Like him or not, Rodriguez is an old-school coach. Whether that’s going to translate into the kind of success he had the first time around at WVU? We’ll see. But one thing’s for sure: He’s going to have his guys toughened up by the season opener.

WATCH: WVU HC Rich Rodriguez talk about how society and athletes these days are “softer” than when he first started coaching. He talked about pulling weeds as a kid and how kids have it easy these days. Some good stuff.
“They live in a fantasy world.”
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