What Jax State football Rich Rodriguez said about his future and the NCAA after win over LA Tech
JACKSONVILLE — Following Jacksonville State football's win over Louisiana Tech, coach Rich Rodriguez talked about how he deals with coaching rumors — in regards to the players and focusing on the ongoing season — along with sharing his thoughts on the NCAA policy keeping the Gamecocks from a bowl game, for now at least.
The rumor hasn't started, yet, but Rodriguez's name could start flying for jobs — thanks to the work he's done for the Gamecocks. It started a bit on Saturday, with former player, Pat McAfee, throwing Rodriguez's name out for the head coach opening at Texas A&M during ESPN's College Gameday.
Rodriguez knows the rumors are part of the territory and likes to be on this end of those rumors.
"If somebody is mentioning you for a job in a good way, that’s a good thing. It means your program is doing okay, you don’t want it to be the other way. I’ve been on the other way before," Rodriguez said before diving into the Jacksonville State job. "It’s a great situation, I have a great staff. I’m biased, but I don’t think there’s a better group of 5 staff in the country, so I want to keep them."
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Rodriguez has been the Gamecocks head coach for two seasons, amassing a 17-5 record, including an 8-3 mark this season. The Gamecocks have been led by their offense, which averages more than 200 yards on the ground per game. Rodriguez's spread offense helped set the CUSA single-game record with more than 500 yards on Saturday. He is still calling the plays and remains locked in, which includes talking to his players about the coaching rumors.
"I’ve been a head coach for 26 years, I’ve been handling it for awhile, in a good way sometimes. I don’t think you ever. ... You got to be honest with your people, if someone is talking or you’re interested in something. I’m 100% dialed into what we’re doing," Rodriguez said.
Before coming to Jax State, Rodriguez rose to fame coaching his alma mater West Virginia going 60-26 in seven seasons. He led them to an appearance in the Sugar and Fiesta Bowls, but left for Michigan before coaching the in the Fiesta bowl. At Michigan, he went 15-22 before taking the 2011 season off after being fired. He moved onto Arizona from 2012 to 2017, going 45-35. For his career, he is 179-124 in 26 seasons leading different programs.
Jacksonville State will wrap up the regular season by traveling to New Mexico State next week before awaiting its bowl fate. While Jax State surpassed the six-win mark over a month ago, due to their transition to FBS they need help making a bowl game.
Like with the head coaching rumors, Rodriguez will choose to keep it honest with his players about the bowl situation.
"I'll tell our guys: the NCAA doesn't have a lot of common sense at times. They don't have common sense legislation, this case it's common sense legislation that if you're doing all the things your supposed to be doing in your second year of transition, like us and James Madison, you should be atomically eligible for a bowl game, if you get enough wins you should be eligible to play in a conference championship," Rodriguez said. "We knew what it was going into it, so I'm not going to (complain) about it, or cry about it all day. I'm hopefully things will work out and there won't be enough teams to qualify and we'll be in."
Maxwell Donaldson covers high school sports and Jacksonville State athletics for the Gadsden Times. Find him on Twitter/X @_Max_Donaldson and contact him at MDonaldson@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Jacksonville State's Rich Rodriguez on coaching future and NCAA policies
