Rich Rodriguez Delivers Epic Rant, Roasts Players for Trying to Look Like Angel Reese

Every now and then, West Virginia head football coach Rich Rodriguez produces gold when he’s at the podium or taking part in an interview. Monday night was one of those nights.

After spending the first 30 minutes or so of his weekly radio show talking about the progress of certain players and looking ahead to this week’s matchup against Arizona State, Rodriguez went on a rant about player accessories.

The discussion started with Rodriguez being asked about Fred Perry having to come off the field before the first play of the game against Colorado because his knee brace was exposed. It’s safe to say that won’t happen again. But as far as all of the other stuff guys wear for looks, Rodriguez had a thing or two to say about it.

“I tell our guys I don’t want to be the uniform police, but some of this stuff bothers me. Like it’s not a towel they wear, it’s a tail. It’s not like you’re keeping your hands dry with something that’s three inches long and looks like a tail. I’m like, when in the hell did we start putting tails on our guys? It’s the same thing when you’re watching games and they got mouthpieces, but they ain’t using ’em. It’s just decoration. Not here. We don’t do that. You got a mouthpiece, you put it in your mouth.

“It’s the same way with shoes. You wear the shoes that we give you. You don’t go over there to get your own fancy shoes and put some sparkles on it or whatever the hell it is. The shoes Danny Nehlen gives down there, that’s the shoe you wear.

“It’s called a uniform. We’re all the same. You don’t see the military when they go out to do battle, one’s wearing white, one’s wearing green. They’re all in uniform. That’s what we got to be. The guys that want to enforce that rule is the NFL. I talked to a guy in the NFL that said, ‘Coach, it’s crazy.’ They’ll fine them thousands of dollars. They’ll fine the coaches, they’ll fine the equipment managers, they’ll fine the owners of the team because they want everybody to look uniform.

“But for some reason in college, we let these kids wear all kinds of glow-in-the-dark mouthpieces and all kinds of crap like that. It drives me crazy. I didn’t know if the fans liked that, like, gee, I can’t wait until Jonny comes out with a sparkly blue glow-in-the-dark mouthpiece. He’s my favorite player.’ Are you kidding me? And it’s like, they wear these leggings, right? If you had a leg injury and you had a knee sprain or something, and the trainer gives you a knee sleeve to keep that tight, that’s understandable. But if you’re wearing just one long legging on one leg and nothing on the other, you’re just trying to be Angel Reese. That’s what I call ’em. Are you trying to make a fashion statement? She can get by with it. She’s in the WNBA. You’re a football player. No Angel Reese’s here.”

This sort of thing falls in line with his stance on TikTok, which went viral last offseason. But he’s got a point. No one wants to see these guys dancing in the locker room in the middle of a week in some choreographed skit. Instead, they’d rather see the celebration following a victory. The mouthpiece and shoe thing may sound like something a typical old-school coach would say, but again, he has a point. If you have a mouthpiece, it’s there to protect your teeth, not hang off the bottom of your facemask. And the shoes, why wear bright red or neon green when those aren’t your school colors? It just looks odd.

I get it, though. Some folks couldn’t care less as long as the result is a win.

Rich Rodriguez Delivers Epic Rant, Roasts Players for Trying to Look Like Angel Reese

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